Cinema Thread, because movies is a stupid word

[mgil]

The only movie I’m looking forward to of late is the next Nick Cage movie.

[hector]

Tried watching the new Batman again. Couldn't make it past 30 minutes. Boring.

Saw the new Dr Strange. Loved it. Best Marvel movie in awhile.

I was stuck out of town and considered watching it again but this is what I feared. Is it just my imagination or is it paced almost like a Netflix series rather than a movie? It would be great to soak it in at home, taking pauses here and there to get a bite and discuss it. But sitting through it straight again...I don't think so.

Batman or Strange?

[dw]

Tried watching the new Batman again. Couldn't make it past 30 minutes. Boring.

Saw the new Dr Strange. Loved it. Best Marvel movie in awhile.

I was stuck out of town and considered watching it again but this is what I feared. Is it just my imagination or is it paced almost like a Netflix series rather than a movie? It would be great to soak it in at home, taking pauses here and there to get a bite and discuss it. But sitting through it straight again...I don't think so.

Batman or Strange?

Batman.

[hector]

Tried watching the new Batman again. Couldn't make it past 30 minutes. Boring.

Saw the new Dr Strange. Loved it. Best Marvel movie in awhile.

I was stuck out of town and considered watching it again but this is what I feared. Is it just my imagination or is it paced almost like a Netflix series rather than a movie? It would be great to soak it in at home, taking pauses here and there to get a bite and discuss it. But sitting through it straight again...I don't think so.

Batman or Strange?

Batman.

Yeah. I can see what you mean then.
If the first 30 minutes had been the slow intro episode and I had hope for episode 2 and 3, with breaks, I might have approached it differently.

Maybe I'll give it another chance watching it this way.

[omaniphil]

Just bought tickets to see Top Gun tonight. I'm pretty excited. The first movie had a pretty formative experience on my childhood.

[dw]

Seems like the Navy would have age limits for their test pilots...

[omaniphil]

Seems like the Navy would have age limits for their test pilots...

To be fair, Tom Cruise is perpetually 45 years old.

But yeah, seems like nobody out there stays a fighter pilot past the mid 50s or so: https://sofrep.com/fightersweep/us-navy ... t-retires/

[dw]

Seems like the Navy would have age limits for their test pilots...

To be fair, Tom Cruise is perpetually 45 years old.

But yeah, seems like nobody out there stays a fighter pilot past the mid 50s or so: https://sofrep.com/fightersweep/us-navy ... t-retires/

Eh that's longer than I thought, I guess I'll allow it.

"allows it*

[mbasic]

Tried watching the new Batman again. Couldn't make it past 30 minutes. Boring.

I made it to the end. I didn't like it.
It just drug along way too much.
Sad because it was worse the 2nd Batman series/reboot (1st Bale Batman) .... and it should have/could have been better.

[omaniphil]

Top Gun was so good. Leaned hard into the nostalgia, but hey, that's what we were here for.

[JonA]

Top Gun was so good. Leaned hard into the nostalgia, but hey, that's what we were here for.

I agree. I'd say I was on the edge of my seat for most of the film, but I was pretty firmly embedded in the "You are now relaxed" position of the movie theater recliner.

SpoilerShow

I was actually kinda surprised with all the Star Wars references. Targeting the exhaust port as the only weakness after a high speed flight through a channel rimmed with turrets. The "Stay with me Dad" as he switches to manual targeting for the final shot. The "Stay on Target!". The last minute Han Solo rescue at the end. All the fancy line graphics for the computer systems and training systems. The gen 5 Tie Fighter pilots

Couple that with the "America, Fuck Yeah!" and "You kids with all your fancy technology think you are so great, but us old guys trying to live in the glory days will still kick your ass!" and yeah, that's what we were here for.

[omaniphil]

Top Gun was so good. Leaned hard into the nostalgia, but hey, that's what we were here for.

I agree. I'd say I was on the edge of my seat for most of the film, but I was pretty firmly embedded in the "You are now relaxed" position of the movie theater recliner.

SpoilerShow

I was actually kinda surprised with all the Star Wars references. Targeting the exhaust port as the only weakness after a high speed flight through a channel rimmed with turrets. The "Stay with me Dad" as he switches to manual targeting for the final shot. The "Stay on Target!". The last minute Han Solo rescue at the end. All the fancy line graphics for the computer systems and training systems. The gen 5 Tie Fighter pilots

Couple that with the "America, Fuck Yeah!" and "You kids with all your fancy technology think you are so great, but us old guys trying to live in the glory days will still kick your ass!" and yeah, that's what we were here for.

SpoilerShow

The theory that I read recently, that I find plausible, is that this was a movie about salvation. Tom Cruise died at the beginning of the movie during the Dark Star crash, and then he enters purgatory, where he has to wrap up all the loose ends of his life in order to make it to fighter pilot heaven. He heals the relationship with Rooster, with Penny, accomplishes the big McGuffin challenge, and then quite literally, he hears a voice from the sky saying "This is your Saviour speaking" with Hangman flying a plane that has his call sign written below the cockpit with all the vowels omitted "HNGMN" - a la YHWH.

Anyways, just a silly theory, but I went back to watch it again last night in IMAX, and the theory holds up.

[mbasic]

Saw Dr. Strange. I thought it sucked.

All of the multiverse shit and magic crap just allows for shitty lazy openended writing IMO .... anything can happen.
Its just all over the place and I can't get into it.

An analog to this^ is when we got to the point where Tony Stark was able to use nano-tech in his suit design.
Basically, he could carry around an entire iron-man suit imbedded in his cuff links, and the suit could turn into anything or render itself into any kind of weapon system basically. It's just ..... whats the fucking point any more?

Also, with those last two things .... those also play into the incredible overuse of CGI special effects.
Its not even interesting or visually pleasing to look at anymore. Its all too way overdone /

[this movie doesn't deserve spoiler alerts]
Anyway, best part of THE WHOLE Dr. Strange movie is when Scarlet Witch kills the Tuning Fork guy .... in quick and clever fashion I might add.
I (intentionally fake) laughed out loud in the theater when that happened.
When the intro-scene to the Council of Illuminati starts, I was like ok, I understood Ms.Capt. Brittan thing, and the black Capt.Marvel girl .... but who is this fuck with the tuning fork on his forehead. He seemed like a pretentious prick up there, and then when you see his superpower dispatching Dr.Strange3.0 in the next flashback scene...I was taken back to the South Park Coon and Friends mini series where the 4th grade kids had made up their own versions of superheroes with really odd and 'juvenile' superpowers. Mint Berry Crunch and Capt Underpants came to mind.

So when Maximoff killed that asshole .... I couldn't help but laugh.

[mouse]

Anyway, best part of THE WHOLE Dr. Strange movie is when they made the 1990's X-Men theme MCU canon...

[dw]

Saw Top Gun: Maverick.

Didn't much care for it. The first half or so felt off, it lacked the music video quality of Tony Scott's direction where scenes just feel right even though they don't particularly make sense or even have an obvious purpose (e.g. the famous homoerotic volleyball scene). Here so much is motivated by the desire to have a 1:1 reference to some element of the first movie that it doesn't have any poetry of its own.

I also thought there was a perceptible Mission Impossible influence (one of the producers is the guy that directed the last three or so) that took the action to a less realistic level than the first (whether the first is was remotely realistic IDK but it felt like it at the time).

I also didn't like how farcical some of the humor was...e.g. Bob, Hondo. The first was almost humorless as far as I can recall and I think that worked better.

In the end though the father-son drama worked pretty well and did give me something to care about, which is not always the case with big action movies.

The armchair director in me thinks they should have played down Jennifer Connolly's role and made Maverick's possible domestic future more of a possibility hinted at and then revisited at the end than a substantial plot element.

Also maybe they should have ratcheted up the Maverick-Rooster conflict a bit more. None of the trainees ever got a chance to make an impact...even visually they were much more bland than the cadets in the first movie.

[hsilman]

I don't know what some of you are on, but Top Gun might be the worst movie I've ever seen. It would have been vastly improved by simply splicing together the flying scenes with nothing in between and no context or anything.

The stakes could literally not be lower. If Tom Cruise got a papercut, it would have increased the dramatic tension. I also couldn't care less about a single character.

SpoilerShow

I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the main drama point in the whole movie is Tom Cruise wants goose's son to like him. What. The. Fuck. Because he basically gave him a bad recommendation that just DELAYED HIS CAREER. Didn't hurt him, didn't get him kicked out. Just slowed down his career growth a little.

No one even comes close to dying. They even show the enemy pilots fucking ejecting. Jesus.

The dialogue was written by a middle schooler. It didn't even have the flow or humour of the original.

I'm going to go rewatch Gymkata to see if it's worse, but it's going to be close.

[augeleven]

Gymkata

[hsilman]

Rewatched Top Gun, bootleg download. Mostly to make my friends and wife suffer.

I'm not crazy, but the world is. How the fuck does this have 96% on rotten tomatoes? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. While on a second watch, the last ~15 minutes of the movie are somewhat redeemable, it's still a gigantic pile of garbage. Also, zero character development. The movie could have been set in 1986. The entire movie as about Tom Cruise, and him alone. Not a single other character got a minute of worthwhile screentime.

This is the first time in my life I really don't understand the world wrt popular opinion. But the overwhelming positive response from both critics and moviegoers just rocks my mind. I can't figure it out for the life of me. It's just a TERRIBLE movie, and people are praising not only the action, but the actual plot, dialogue, and character "development". What. The. Fuck.

[mikeylikey]

I don't know what some of you are on, but Top Gun might be the worst movie I've ever seen. It would have been vastly improved by simply splicing together the flying scenes with nothing in between and no context or anything.

The stakes could literally not be lower. If Tom Cruise got a papercut, it would have increased the dramatic tension. I also couldn't care less about a single character.

SpoilerShow

I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the main drama point in the whole movie is Tom Cruise wants goose's son to like him. What. The. Fuck. Because he basically gave him a bad recommendation that just DELAYED HIS CAREER. Didn't hurt him, didn't get him kicked out. Just slowed down his career growth a little.

No one even comes close to dying. They even show the enemy pilots fucking ejecting. Jesus.

The dialogue was written by a middle schooler. It didn't even have the flow or humour of the original.

I'm going to go rewatch Gymkata to see if it's worse, but it's going to be close.

You must have hated the original Top Gun, no?

[dw]

Rewatched Top Gun, bootleg download. Mostly to make my friends and wife suffer.

I'm not crazy, but the world is. How the fuck does this have 96% on rotten tomatoes? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. While on a second watch, the last ~15 minutes of the movie are somewhat redeemable, it's still a gigantic pile of garbage. Also, zero character development. The movie could have been set in 1986. The entire movie as about Tom Cruise, and him alone. Not a single other character got a minute of worthwhile screentime.

This is the first time in my life I really don't understand the world wrt popular opinion. But the overwhelming positive response from both critics and moviegoers just rocks my mind. I can't figure it out for the life of me. It's just a TERRIBLE movie, and people are praising not only the action, but the actual plot, dialogue, and character "development". What. The. Fuck.

I kinda think you're right tbh, I just don't share your passion.

I think in my review I said I disliked it for about the first third but it may have been more like the first two thirds. I did like the whole extended finale though.

Also who the hell is Hondo? What is his actual rank and position in the US military? He seemed like Tom Cruise's random black sidekick / comic relief guy. How is he able to serve with him both at the testing site and at Top Gun?