This Old Neon Forum

Kong Wen wrote:I just watched The Hateful Eight

I've watched a few movies since this!

I re-watched Creed with Mrs. Kong. I enjoyed it just as much as I did in cinema, but this borrowed version didn't play well with my speaker system. Not sure what was going on there. 8.8/10

I watched a movie on Netflix called Last Knights. It's a fantasy-medieval (fictional setting) action-revenge movie based loosely on the 47 Ronin story, starring Clive Owen and Morgan Freeman. Good movie, but there's a lot of weird stuff going on. It's fairly clear that it's about samurai but it's really trying not to be about samurai, and this results in an interesting Euro-Asian fusion setting that pretty much works. Solid 7/10

Mrs. Kong and I also watched Jesus Camp, which is generally a documentary about child abuse perpetrated by a fundamentalist cult, and specifically about the rise of the marriage between evangelical religion and political agenda & action. 5.9/10 - It loses some points, not because I didn't like the exposé slant, but because it felt like it slightly lost its direction. It's anchored by a sort-of unsympathetic radio host who's supposed to be the voice of reason, but I didn't really buy it. And it's split down the middle between following three kids at cult-camp on one hand and the political issue on the other. I feel like it could have drilled down into this a little bit more, so it left me a little unsatisfied. Still a worthy topic, and a worthy watch.

Finally, last night I watched Ip Man. I have a lot to say about this movie, but I don't want to spoil anything. I know Drauks has seen it, based on his comment in the chat. I was expecting a historically-situated, well-choreographed martial arts action movie. It was that, but I feel like it did a little bit more than that. It's better than I thought it would be, even though I think one of the bonus things it tried to do worked and one didn't work as well. Anyway, Donnie Yen is great. 8.69/10

Ted 2...pretty funny. If you enjoyed the first, then you'll like this one too. Nothing to write home about but it keeps you laughing for its runtime

squishy wrote:Ted 2...pretty funny. If you enjoyed the first, then you'll like this one too. Nothing to write home about but it keeps you laughing for its runtime

I've been a little burned out of Seth Mcfarlene as of late, but the first Ted was not bad, so I'm sure this one would be fine.

That million ways to die in the west most by him was just awful though.

Has anyone watched the Adam Sandler Netflix movie?

Yeah...stay clear of The Ridiculous Six. There's a reason why no studio would pick it up and it went straight to Netflix.

The Falling

After a tragic event Arya Stark Lydia and her friends at a girl's school start to faint throughout the normal school days. Soon more girls and even teachers are affected. The events force dark secrets to surface.
Very well cast, acted and an excellent cinematography. I saw some reviews call it a horror movie but to make it clear: It isn't. It's a mystery drama hybrid (with more focus on the drama) and a similar vibe as e.g. Picnic at Hanging Rock. Thanks to lots of details, it's also very rewatchable. Overall, I really enjoyed it.

The Look of Silence

This documentary follows up on Act of Killing, in which a camera team follows an Indonesian ex-gangster, who once tortured and killed communists during the genocide for the military goverment after the coup (1965-66).
Here we join an anonymous man, who's brother was brutally killed during the genocide by people who are still in power, live in the neighbourhood or are even relatives. He sets out with the camera team to confront those people, risking his head in the process. Eventually the movie is about as much about him and his family as it is about the way the people involved in the genocide try to avoid guilt, responsibility or calm their conscious.
Note that the events described in this documentary are very vivid and sometimes downright ghastly as the eye of the camera puts pressure on the people.

How to Be Single
Better than I thought it would be. I was expecting the traditional 4 unlikely girls get into crazy shinagans and end up with the perfect guy in the end type story. For the genre it actually broke a lot of the traditional conventions, which was appreciated. It was also legitimately funny, and the characters were handled well too.

Speaking of funny, I forgot to mention (in this thread—I spilled in the chat) that I went to see a preview of Deadpool on Thursday night. It was excellent. It was an origin story with all that entails. It had some good action. The main villain was kind of boring, but that's pretty much how Deadpool works—it's all about him. The comedy was on point, and Reynolds never stops talking throughout the entire film. I've heard some people say the comedy was corny or annoying, but those must be people who don't really know anything about the character. One of his superpowers is "annoying".

Anyway, I thought it was good. Going to see it again with Mrs. Kong this weekend. I'm glad Reynolds finally got the movie off the ground and that it worked so well. I can see them setting up for an X-Men/Deadpool crossover in the very near future (as soon as possible).

I guess I never posted about my viewing of The Revenant a few weeks ago.

It was fine, but not great. Probably a 6/10 or so. Just good enough that I didn't regret seeing it, but not good enough for me to be able to form much praise. I suppose I at least enjoyed the conflict enough to see it through, so that's something.

A few new movies watched since the last sweeping update:

The Revenant
Like many others, I had a mixed reaction to this film. I thought it was well-directed and quite visually stunning. I don't think Leo necessarily deserves an Oscar for it, but I'm not an actor, so what do I know? As a northerner, one thing that dragged me out of the movie a couple times was how often characters would walk or crawl through snow or swim in ice-water or hang around in ice-soaked clothing and somehow survive with all of their limbs intact. But hey, poetic licence.
7.9/10

Unbreakable
This was my first time seeing this movie. I had some M. Night reluctance, which is why I hadn't seen it before now. Overall, I thought it was a nice slow burn. I can definitely see a lot of people not liking it for the reasons I actually did like it: really slow reveals, low-key climactic moments, and a focus on Willis's relationships. The characteristic M. Night twist wasn't even as big as I expected it to be, so I was kind of left with a sudden "eh, that's it?" feeling at the end, but overall it was a good movie.
7.6/10

Spotlight
Just watched this Oscar contender last night. All I knew going in was that it was about a newspaper breaking the Catholic Church's pedophilia ring coverup. Excellent movie with a great cast doing great work. The film does an excellent job of accentuating its themes visually without hammering the viewer over the head with them. There are a lot of scenes of the reporters out doing field work, and there's a big church looming in the distant background in almost every shot, showing just how pervasive and tucked into Boston's culture the Catholic Church was and is. The characters also run into a lot of systemic passive resistance that's frustrating to watch, and you can only imagine how frustrating it must have been to try to work against that much inertia.
8.46/10

Saw two movies this weekend

Deadpool
This was a lot of fun. As far as superhero movies go, I've only seen the Spider-Man's and Batman's, missed out on the rest of the Marvel and DC universe. So I wasn't super hyped going into this or anything, but it was about as good as I thought it would be considering all the praise. It was funny, meta but not too meta, and Ryan Reynolds was very likeable. I like the liberties they were able to take with the higher age rating as well.

10 Cloverfield Lane
I enjoyed this one quite a bit I'd say. I was happy that it was more of a thriller, and not a gruesome horror movie. I hadn't seen any trailers going in so I didn't know what to expect. All I knew was that it had some relation to Cloverfield, which I thought was not bad, but ultimately it's a movie I can't help but look down on in 2016 now that we've had so many shaky cam movies. This movie though had a great concept and I think all of the characters were executed well. I really liked the ending too, like I found it very satisfying, but I can understand why some people might not be into it. I think it's definitely worth a watch though.