What Did You Watch Today?

[Monkey D. Lars]

Some Like It Hot (1959) is amazing!

[Benjamin]

Can't believe it took you this long to watch it! 

[GhostMachine]

The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2 - I saw every Hunger Games movie in the theater except this one (didn't go due to financial problems at the time), and it was a great way to wrap up the series. But.....

 

The build-up throughout the entire series to her ending up with Peta is kinda meh, since he's useless in the second movie and just...there...before he's brainwashed in the third. Also, I saw Fennick dying coming a mile away, but Prim's death was a shocker.

 

Edited March 27, 2016 by GhostMachine

[Jimmy]

I was completely and utterly suckered in by the second Hunger Games film, which was so much better than it had any right to be, which I think made the last two instalments even more disappointing, aside from the Phillip Seymour Hoffman stuff. The end of the last instalment sucked so hard, they really should've had the foresight to remove that horribly tacky epilogue. Still, I think it was far better than most Hollywood franchises, but the second instalment raised my expectations that it might possibly be something more than that. 

[LL!]

6 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

I was completely and utterly suckered in by the second Hunger Games film, which was so much better than it had any right to be, which I think made the last two instalments even more disappointing, aside from the Phillip Seymour Hoffman stuff. The end of the last instalment sucked so hard, they really should've had the foresight to remove that horribly tacky epilogue. Still, I think it was far better than most Hollywood franchises, but the second instalment raised my expectations that it might possibly be something more than that. 

I'd have to say I agree with most of what you just said. The second movie blew the first one out of the water and set a precedent that the other two just didn't even get close to reaching. Not only was it awful to split the last two and make it seem like the first of the last two was just a placeholder/a first act, put the last movie had a very glaring pothole that I cannot even get past and 

Spoiler

The death of Premm was met with a basic shrug of the shoulders by Katniss with what the fuck? If she is meant to react to anything it is the one person she truly seems to care about. Not to mention with how horrible they treated the love triangle that just seemed to be tacked on between her, Peeta, and Gale.

Complete and utter disaster and disappointment.

[Jimmy]

 

19 minutes ago, Hans GruLLer said:

I'd have to say I agree with most of what you just said. The second movie blew the first one out of the water and set a precedent that the other two just didn't even get close to reaching. Not only was it awful to split the last two and make it seem like the first of the last two was just a placeholder/a first act, put the last movie had a very glaring pothole that I cannot even get past and 

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The death of Premm was met with a basic shrug of the shoulders by Katniss with what the fuck? If she is meant to react to anything it is the one person she truly seems to care about. Not to mention with how horrible they treated the love triangle that just seemed to be tacked on between her, Peeta, and Gale.

Complete and utter disaster and disappointment.

This is exactly it. I wasn't fussed by the first one and only watched the second one because a friend wanted to, and it was probably the most pleasant surprise I had at the cinema that year. If it wasn't for the second film, I might not have watched the last two, but if I did, I wouldn't have had any sort of expectation whatsoever. It just feels like a huge missed opportunity, because they proved that they could exceed the quality and formula of Hollywood franchise films, and then proceeded to waste all of that talent and ambition on two films that were completely devoid of anything that made that second film work. 

I had a similar thing with The Maze Runner. I actually thought the first film was a fair bit of fun, and then the second turned out to be an utter disappointment. I'd love to see a proper quality teen franchise -- Pixar have nailed the children's/adult demographic, there's no reason something like The Hunger Games or Maze Runner couldn't do the same, but there's just a real lack of ambition or something. It's not like The Hunger Games was sort on really strong actors across the board. 

[GhostMachine]

My big huge problem with the second Maze Runner: Theresa turned into a total idiot.

I expect there to be some sort of redemption for what she did in the third movie, but personally I hope she ends up dead.

Edited March 27, 2016 by GhostMachine

[GA!]

I'm with @Hans GruLLer and @Jimmy, although I can't remember much about it now, Hunger Games Catching Fire was an incredibly solid film that sold me on seeing out the series. Then said series died on its arse.

 

I also haven't seen The Maze Runner series past the first film because I despise anything that is too obsessed with setting up sequels over making the here and now enjoyable. I barely give The Empire Strikes Back a pass for pulling off that shit (thankfully A New Hope had already set-up enough of the universe while being a self-contained work for Empire to get away with it), why should the fucking Maze Runner be afforded at least two bites of the cherry?

[Benjamin]

Yeah, the second Maze Runner film was god awful and just goes to show that the obsession that Hollywood with turning YA novels into films had reached a tipping point. The second one lacked all the intrigue and excitement the first one managed to naturally portray, because they just kept adding twists and turns for the sake of it.

Out of all these type of films, however, I'm still most disappointed with how Divergent turned out, because I was a incredibly huge fan of Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller after the Spectacular Now, and was hoping this would launch them into superstardom. Instead, the Divergent franchise might be the worst of the bunch (or maybe it was the Immortal Bones crap).

[Maxx]

Zootopia

Lovely movie, way better than BVS

[Noah]

Currently in the cinema for London has Fallen. I'll let you know how it goes shortly.

[Noah]

Enjoyed it. Obviously doesn't touch Olympus has fallen but I went in knowing what I was going to get and had fun with it.

Now for dinner and then deadpool at 9:15.

[IDOL]

Batman v Superman was alright. Don't get the universal HATE from critics. It certainly had its flaws, but I didn't come out of it feeling like I wasted money.

[GA!]

Watched Anomalisa after @Jimmy recommended it last night. It was very good, although I didn't catch on how the incidental characters were meant to look and sound the same until I read about it afterwards. But I guess that's what happens when you watch something labelled 'DVDSCR'

[Sam]

I agree with all the love for Zootropolis. Really fun movie with loads of clever references.

[Monkey D. Lars]

Wag the Dog (1997) was a nice little film starring De Niro and Hoffman! 

[LL!]

I just finished working a screening of Hardcore Henry and... wow. That was insanity. I actually had a lot of fun watching it. It's very much like a first person shooter that isn't war themed. It's ultraviolent, all over the place, has funny bits, and has awful dialogue with one dimensional characters. But my god is it entertaining. 

For gamers: think Far Cry 3 but in Russia. 

For others: think a first person view version of Crank but in Russia. 

[Kaney]

Did it not get a bit weary watching the first person perspective after a while? I thought it looked good from the trailer but my concern was the gimmick would become a pain after a while.

[LL!]

5 hours ago, Kaney said:

Did it not get a bit weary watching the first person perspective after a while? I thought it looked good from the trailer but my concern was the gimmick would become a pain after a while.

I didn't as I got used to it pretty quickly. The movie starts off slow to sort of ease you into it then the action starts and barely ever stops.

What's good is that because it's shot on a GoPro it's smoother than someone running around with an actual camera. But in the end I really think it just comes down to personal preference? I'm not a particular fan of the shaky cam and/or first person gimmick, but it wasn't as distracting as I thought it'd be with this one. 

[GA!]

Glad to hear Hardcore Henry is enjoyable. It's not something I've been really anticipating for ages or anything, but the trailers make it look like a fuckload of fun.