Guardians of the Galaxy 3 - MILD SPOILERS in form of character descriptions.

The soundtrack didn't hit me as much as in the first two movies, but that could be partially due to me liking the other songs better and this film having a darker tone. It was an overall good experience despite its flaws (feeling forced at times, like there was a wholesomeness checklist they had to go through to include everyone in certain moments and make visible character development for everyone, or how they reduced a very interesting villain with cold rationale to essentially an evil, screaming madman, presumably to make sure no one would try to agree with him and not to make him more charismatic than Kang. I haven't read the comics, but I think his logic and character would've deserved better treatment.) There's also Adam Warlock, who's surprisingly entertaining to watch as a cretin, but in almost every scene, the movie would work just fine with a random replacement character, obviously they needed to include him after all the anticipation they've built, but I wouldn't call him a driving force behind the plot in any sense of the phrase). They managed to balance out the depressive tone with the usual Drax-Mantis oneliners and managed to conclude it in a more or less emotional, satisfying way (Star-Lord's and Gamora's ending didn't convince me though that they're on the absolute best track they could be on), ultimately it's an ending that makes you appreciate the good times and forgive the bad times and an overall fine reminder that you don't need the madness of the multiverse to be entertained if you have good characters with James Gunn calling the shots.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
That has to be the most epic typo since this. . . .

That deserves to be in the rant thread, I was laughing SOOOoo much.
That is what he needs to be known AS now and I want a backstory for why!

Maybe he's a horrible boss? I mean he's an aristocrat and a vampire- he has servants and a castle. He's obviously a rich old bugger…

InkyMoondrop wrote:
Guardians of the Galaxy 3 - MILD SPOILERS in form of character descriptions.

I loved the first one because of the Gen-X focussed popculture refs but also because I saw it in a steaming hot theatre in Istanbul on my first or second day there, haha, it was a magical experience.
The second was NOT as good, mainly because of baby Groot (cut characters are arse), but the end was good. The Endgame stuff with them was blargh…
I AM interested to see this one though.

InkyMoondrop wrote:
Guardians of the Galaxy 3 - MILD SPOILERS in form of character descriptions.

Saw it this weekend. I liked it too. It's getting mixed reviews. Definitely goes darker than the first two, and messier, story wise. But like the previous chapters it has great regard for all its characters. I think it's a good sendoff. Not sure what the rewatch value will be for this one, or how much of a crowd-pleaser it is, for general audiences.

Fully agree that the music didn't work nearly as well in this one. Wow, did it ever fall off in that area! The music hit the perfect emotional note almost every time in the previous chapters. This time it was an emotional flatline almost every time. Not sure if it was the song choice or something else.

Great performance by the actor playing the High Evolutionary. Yeah, he was a screaming maniac. Interesting choice. It worked for me!

Guardians of the Galaxy is my favorite corner of the MCU. However, I have heard reviews comparing it to the worst movie I have ever watched, The 5th Element, so I will probably not pay money to see it.

I have never rewatched it, and have never purposely watched a Luc Besson movie since. I do not love to hate that movie, I HATE it.

sleeping_gorilla wrote:
Guardians of the Galaxy is my favorite corner of the MCU. However, I have heard reviews comparing it to the worst movie I have ever watched, The 5th Element, so I will probably not pay money to see it.

I have never rewatched it, and have never purposely watched a Luc Besson movie since. I do not love to hate that movie, I HATE it.

Interesting. Wonder what those review base their comparison on, it didn't occur to me. The sets and costume designs might've hit a different tone than in the previous installments, lots of alien species form communities or live in their own world and maybe the High Evolutionary evoked the image of Zorg in a few people, because of his personality, but otherwise it's still pretty much a Guardians movie.

sleeping_gorilla wrote:
Guardians of the Galaxy is my favorite corner of the MCU. However, I have heard reviews comparing it to the worst movie I have ever watched, The 5th Element, so I will probably not pay money to see it.

I have never rewatched it, and have never purposely watched a Luc Besson movie since. I do not love to hate that movie, I HATE it.

My unit was in the field after a hard day on the range. The ranges got shut down for a fire so we couldn't do any training. We had the time so a bunch of us climbed into a deuce and a half truck and drove onto main post for a movie. It was the 5th Element. Imagine a bunch of dog tired tank crewman in combat gear sitting in a movie theater watching that movie. I can't help liking it because we riffed on it hard because it was so incomprehensibly awful. An imaginative feast for the eyes but a really bad movie but the girl in the ribbon was okay. Then we got back on the truck and back out to the field for some sleep before we got the tanks ready for turn in. You can't hate a movie no matter how awful it is when seen under those kind of conditions.

Specifically, Call Me Chato called the Guardians of the Galaxy 3 “The same visionary mess Besson has given us in the past…”

I cite “The Fifth Element” as a movie that has everything going for it. It has wonderful background and character design and a director with a great track record. It has a great cast that gives great performances, seriously you have Bruce Willis in his prime, Mila Jovovich, Gary Oldman, Idris Elba, and Chris Tucker (great performance of a completely banal and useless character, people thought Jar Jar was bad). With all those positives it still manages to be awful.

It was the only time I had gone to a movie, the theatre was packed, and we all sat in complete silence. One lady realized what we were watching was supposed to be funny.

sleeping_gorilla wrote:
Specifically, Call Me Chato called the Guardians of the Galaxy 3 “The same visionary mess Besson has given us in the past…”

I cite “The Fifth Element” as a movie that has everything going for it. It has wonderful background and character design and a director with a great track record. It has a great cast that gives great performances, seriously you have Bruce Willis in his prime, Mila Jovovich, Gary Oldman, Idris Elba, and Chris Tucker (great performance of a completely banal and useless character, people thought Jar Jar was bad). With all those positives it still manages to be awful.

It was the only time I had gone to a movie, the theatre was packed, and we all sat in complete silence. One lady realized what we were watching was supposed to be funny.

I mean I enjoyed that film, but I was 11 when I saw it. :D I'd totally agree if this would be the first Guardians film and you wouldn't have any context to these characters whatsoever. But despite the vol 3 being overpacked and not nearly as smooth as the rest, it works pretty okay, it just works as a final chapter to the already somewhat built-up story and universe not a standalone one. Which is understandable if we consider how character-driven the whole thing is.

Am I the only one that loved fifth element. I had it on VHS and would watch it over and over. So many iconic scenes and and memorable lines… Like “chicken good” “multi-pass” and, to this day, every time I go to top of someone's drink I say “you want some more??” In a robot voice.

lothar wrote:
Am I the only one that loved fifth element. I had it on VHS and would watch it over and over. So many iconic scenes and and memorable lines… Like “chicken good” “multi-pass” and, to this day, every time I go to top of someone's drink I say “you want some more??” In a robot voice.

No, I loved it.
I thought it was like a live action Moebius comics from Heavy Metal. I thought it was amazing :D

I've loved it more each time I've seen it.

It got bad reviews at the time for some reason, maybe that coloured people's views or maybe people expected something different from it?

The 5th Element is a very hyper, tongue in cheek, silly, crazy dream sort of film, a lot of people don't like that winking-at-the-camera style of thing

I recently rewatched what many consider to be one of Don Bluth's worst films: ROCK-A-DOODLE.

I've actually been a longtime defender of this movie, contesting that it's nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be, and it was certainly one of my favorite childhood movies . . . rewatching it again as an adult, however, well, while I still maintain my opinion that the movie isn't as bad as people make it out to be, I did actually take more notice of the flaws that it had that I, understandably, overlooked as a kid. The story is not only a might clumsy (I can understand why Patou's narration was added at the last minute to help clarify a lot of things), but it's also really rushed in some spots too, especially when it involved Chanticleer and Goldie's romance. Speaking of Chanticleer, aside from his singing and crowing to raise the sun, and his relocating to the city to become a rooster Elvis impersonator, he really is a pretty personality-deprived character, and in fact, he's actually the least-interesting character in the movie, compared to how much more colorful all of the other supporting characters are. And speaking of colorful, I still do say that this has perhaps some of the most beautiful and colorful animation that any of Don Bluth's movies ever had.

Having said all of that though, my only last note is that most of the songs do still hold up very well, and are just as memorable as they were when I was a kid.

I've never seen that. I was aware of it but never watched it.

I watched Tombstone again the other night.
It's only my second ever viewing since I first saw it way mack in the day…

There was a lot I didn't remember. It was a pretty awesome movie all up. Great heroic revenge story, great costumes, great acting, excellent cinematography!

It's based on the real historical events centered around the town of Tombstone in Arizona, with the Earp brothers, Doc Holiday, Ike Clanton, Curly Bill Brocious, Johnny Ringo, and others - the famous gunfight at the OK Corral, the Vendetta ride etc.
It's all told in a very heroic, cinematic way, sort of framed as an organised crime VS the police story, like The Untouchables. With the “Cowboys” with their red sashes as a lawless, organised criminal gang, versus the Earp brothers as a mercenary, semi-vigilante group that are still a bit wild but more on the side of law and order.


The actual history was reinterpreted in some places, compressed and re-imagined. The common idea is to say “oh that's all fine if it makes a better story, no one expects a film to be an accurate portray of history…” - Which is of course ignorant bullshit.
OF COURSE audiences think what they're watching is accurate and not many will search out the real stories. It's also easy as anything to make the real events just as exciting and interesting as any re-imagining, so that is a failing in the movie. Like the scene where Doc Holiday and Johnny Ringo have their close quarters final duel… In reality Doc was hundreds of miles away and Ringo committed suicide.
-There IS room for creative writing because we don't know what people said to each other and all the many many little extra character interactions. The trouble comes when you change known details.

Aside from that failing I think it was a great western.

Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer and Michael Biehn and Powers Boothe and… thinks… Bill Paxton and Sam Elliot, made that a great movie. Compare with Kevin Costner's “Wyatt Earp” – supposedly more historically accurate, and also with great actors, but somehow a drag compared with Tombstone.

As if either can compare to John Ford's My Darling Clementine. Tombstone can and surpasses it. As far as history Man who shot Liberty Valance said it best. “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend” A lot of the story of the Wild West is legend not fact and the legend persists.

I just saw a pre code movie Three Broadway Girls (1932) that was basically Sex in the City even down to characters of the three female leads. It would influence any number of other female buddy pictures of the 1930s and 40s but being made after the Hayes Code none would be quite as raunchy. Yeah, there is nothing new. Anything you do there's some black and white movie that did it first. All the tropes were once brand new ideas and it's interesting to find the movie or play that introduced them.

MY DARLING CLEMENTINE was Colonel Potter's favorite movie, as he said it had the three things that make a movie great: horses, cowboys, and horses.

Ozone of the Ocean wrote:

I watched Tombstone again the other night.
It's only my second ever viewing since I first saw it way mack in the day…

There was a lot I didn't remember. It was a pretty awesome movie all up. Great heroic revenge story, great costumes, great acting, excellent cinematography!

Oh man, that is a great western. What a cast! I just learned recently what a disaster of a production that film was. The original director was fired, and the replacement director was a total dick apparently. From watching the movie, you'd never know how troubled it was behind the scenes.


The final season of BARRY is almost over. I'm loving it - it's really swinging for the fences with some bold moves for the last season. It's kind of great when a show can actually have an ENDING, and not just looking to keep going forever. It's more common these days for shows to actually have endings. I appreciate that.

I liked the Kevin Coster version as well. He survived several shootouts and was never injured, and the movie depicts that very well.

There is a movie called Good For Nothing, that is probably the most accurate depiction of Old West gunfighting I have seen. Everyone is standing only a few feet away from each other trying to hold up these 10-pound guns and aim with them. The villain hires thugs only because he can't shoot to save his own life.

I have been watching "The Shining Girls“ a mini-series starring Elizabeth Moss from Hand Maids Tale. It is a true crime story with a sci-fi twist that creeps up on you.

Watched a romantic comedy ”Finding You", a Lifetime movie with an impressive budget. It was better than average but made the annoying mistake of not knowing the difference between a fiddle and a violin. Fiddling involves the sharing of traditional songs and improvisation, while the violin is a precise classical method. A violinist would not want to learn fiddling if they were trying to get into a classical music program.

I watched Antman and the wasp quantumania, oh boy that was bad. one of the worst marvel movies for sure. Pretty sure most of the issues come from the script being completely generic. as an outline it's okay but the rest… nope.

sleeping_gorilla wrote:
I liked the Kevin Coster version as well. He survived several shootouts and was never injured, and the movie depicts that very well.

His hat sucked. :)

————————–

I've been hearing abut how good Letterkenny was for ages but could never bring myself to watch it because of the weird name.
My ex super encouraged me so I gave it a go.

Excellent. Very funny.

And the name refers to the name of the town it's set in.

Saw 1944 a Estonian film about the end of WW2 in Estonia. It starts with one of the Estonian foreign unit of the Waffen SS trying to defend their home. They are against the advancing Red forces including the Estonian red division raised by the Soviet Union. The one soldier is writing a letter to his sister. The SS man is killed by an Estonian soldier who decides to deliver the letter to the sister. He comes to the attention of his units commissar and the story shifts to him and his relationship with the sister. There's also a worldly wise NCO sniper who knows to keep out of politics. Overall it's very good with an honest portrayal of both sides in the war.

Also saw Fortress of War about the defense of the Brest fortress in the first weeks of the German invasion of Soviet Union in 1941. It's one of those tragic stories of a hopeless fight but told through the eyes of a young boy who is a musician in the army band.

And then there's watching old episodes of The Avengers and Hogan's Heroes Sorry MCU, there will always be only John Steed and his companion as the Avengers for me, now and forever.

His hat sucked. :)

YOUR hat sucks. No, I would still say that Tombstone is overall a better movie, but Wyatt Earp is worth watching for its great shootouts.

I have been watching “The Good Cop” with Josh Groban and Tony Danza. Explores the relationship between a by-the-book cop and his father who walked on the Razor's Edge and ended up in jail. This was a great show with well-developed characters right from the start. I hesitated to watch it because as we theatre kids say “F Josh Groban!” but he is excellent, and his partner Monica Barbaro comes off as a capable cop and human being rather than just a love interest. There is a scene between TJ and Vasquez in the 6th episode that is Emmy-worthy, a fantastic, hurtful argument between people who love each other that does not involve screaming.

It's a shame there are only 10 episodes, I would like to see more but it has been 5 years.

sleeping_gorilla wrote:
YOUR hat sucks.

LOL!
“Oh no you Di'int!”
Hahaha, man I own a significant collect of the most awesome hats known to man, woman, and child.
BUT, I don't have the perfect cowboy hat… That was in Tombstone. :)

———————–

I watched ALL of Monk, right down to the final episode.
I love how you can do that now with this modern digital model of watching TV. The Pirate tube sites pioneered it well over a decade ago and then Ntflix copied and everyone copied them.

Interesting how the show changed over its run. Monk's neuroses became more genuine and less broad-brush cartoonish like in the first season.
When The woman who played his assistant Sharona suddenly left the show it was a huge blow because she was a central character, but the covered will with the replacement Natalie. They never explained the change of his psychiatrist though.

The relationship between Monk and the Police captain was wonderful and brotherly. It was so well done.

As to the wrapping up of the show:
liked that they gave him his long standing dream of giving him his police job back, him finding it really wasn't what he wanted now and voluntarily going back to being a independent investigator.
The final two episodes had him finally uncovering the long-standing mystery of who killed his wife, which was very disappointing because it was built up like a really interesting conspiracy over the run of the show but in the end it was nothing but a typical little murder mystery like any other in the show.
The good part though were the character resolutions and relationships. It was very truncated but It was nice to see and they respected their characters which was good.

One interesting thing about Monk's character development over the show was that for 95% of it they deliberately disappointed you with him:
Any time he looked like her was being courteous, kind, heroic, brave, or honourable, they'd immediately undercut it and make him look the opposite, and other character would think he was a lowkey arsehole or a bit pathetic. But towards the end they finally changed that, he was allowed to have some moments where he stayed looking good in the eyes of other characters. That was nice :)

SIDE EFFECTS - Rooney Mara, Jude Law, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Channing Tatum, Vinessa Shaw. From 2013, very very confusing to say the least. I'm still baffled even after reading other reviews. Rooney is very depressed and Dr. Law prescribes drug and does she take it??? Maybe, maybe not?? She kills her husband Channing while sleepwalking and goes back to bed? She's dumped in an institute for nut-bars and Dr. Jude loses job…I kept hoping to understand but by end more confused than ever. A 1 1/2 on the Moizmeter.

i am currently watching Black Clover as well as contemplating watching One Piece all over for 3rd time as i like short series like that

also rewatching penguins of madagascar and friends on repeat

Zero Hour wrote:
i am currently watching Black Clover

I found it fun to a point but ran out of steam after a while because it's the same thing over and over again.

TED

I watched Seth MacFarlane's “Ted”. I think more people should take notes from MacFarlane's work. I am not calling him a genius, but he knows the craft. I have become frustrated over the last few years with the unrealistic and harmful depiction of relationships over the last few years, but this was very believable. And it featured a talking Teddy Bear.

For a change, the woman was completely in the right. She loved her man-child boyfriend and even praised him after they break up. She never asks him to give up Ted or any of the things he loves, she even makes a genuine effort to participate. All she asks is that the boyfriend has her back like she has his. Nobody is really the bad guy hear, they are just holding each other accountable for their own actions.

INFLUENCER

Also watched a new movie “Influencer”. I was expecting a silly B movie that I could turn off when I was ready for bed. Instead, it was about a serial killer operating around Influencer culture.

It was simple and well-written, somewhat like a Hitchcock film. Once the villain shows their true feathers, we step into their shoes and watch them try to get away with the crime. The killer is technically savvy, using deep fakes, voice mimicking, and social manipulation to take over their accounts and continue benefitting from their sponsorships.

Then we change to another point of view as a suspicious person starts questioning the killer's story. But we know what the killer is capable of…

Highly recommend this one.

Soft and Quiet

This is a Blumhouse movie that quickly takes a dark turn. It was filmed in one take each day with the actors performing it an hour before sunset to match the script's needs. Major props to the cast and crew, but I had a hard time with the violence and racism. Which of course was the point.

Looking for something to watch while I ate lunch, I clicked on Midway on Amazon Prime. A familiar tale given that TV channels here show the Charlton Heston version from 1976 regularly, but this newer take did its best, plenty of outstanding performances as the drama unfolds and the implacable enemy throws everything it has at the outnumbered American underdogs. Lunch took 2 hours and 18 minutes! Includes historical acknowledgements before the closing credits.

Edit: And through sheer power of will I finished watching The Suicide Squad, I'd quit at 45 minutes in, sometime last month, unable to handle this balderdash. Somehow I found the strength to continue watching from where I left off, all the way to the end. I'm feeling pretty traumatized.

dpat57 wrote:
Looking for something to watch while I ate lunch, I clicked on Midway on Amazon Prime. A familiar tale given that TV channels here show the Charlton Heston version from 1976 regularly, but this newer take did its best, plenty of outstanding performances as the drama unfolds and the implacable enemy throws everything it has at the outnumbered American underdogs. Lunch took 2 hours and 18 minutes! Includes historical acknowledgements before the closing credits.

And still half the history is wrong. There are omissions and errors throughout the movie. Storm in the Pacific from 1960 still has a better Midway sequence. In fact this latest Midway movie practically copies sequences on board the Japanese carriers line for line from the earlier movie.
This movie is also missing a huge part of the battle. There are no US fighters in it. Not a single Wildcat. And Dauntless used as fighters? No, there were Wildcats with them. The Chuck Heston movie is still better for the details of the battle.
But then being a military history buff can just suck all the joy out of a movie. I really liked some parts, but no Wildcats is unforgivable.

sleeping_gorilla wrote:
TED

I liked Ted too, mainly because of the Flash Gordon stuff. Loved that. It's a decent film. Ted's personality is pretty awful and I can't stand it when that sort of drug taking is shown in such a positive light, but apart from that it was fun and touching.
The sequel was shit though. I couldn't get through it.

dpat57 wrote:
American underdogs

??? They paint the Americans as underdogs? Against the Japanese? Oh dear.

Which Suicide Squad? I liked the first one. I didn't finish the second one unfortunately. -not because I didn't like it, there were other factors.

———

So I finished the entirety of Chuck.
They wrapped it up well in the end. The series flubbed its last season, they were running dry of ideas by then, but at least they really brought things together at the end and gave nice endings to the characters. It's good when a show is allowed to have a decent finale.

There's a low budget film called Dauntless that goes over the dive bomber attacks at Midway and is practically a documentary on the real miracle of Midway. In some ways it's actually better than the big budget block buster but those CGI planes just pull so many impossible maneuvers. And there are Wildcats. Past twenty years has seen a lot of new material come forward about Midway so much of the common knowledge just isn't so. Hard to imagine that in early 1942 the US was losing the war and really were underdogs. The huge US War making capacity was still almost a year away. It was hanging on a shoestring. The Japanese appeared unstoppable. Again watching Storm in the Pacific is good here because it is totally their point of view.
There's been a great new three volumd history on the Pacific War as well as some new research on Midway so much of the mystery has been stripped away but still an incredible story. Now where's the movie about the Thatch weave and how pilots in little tubby Wildcats tamed the Zero?