Movies Seen, January-March 2019
Jun. 28th, 2019 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneI should have gotten this up a couple of months ago!
01/17 Mary Poppins Returns
01/27 Tag (vod)
01/30 Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (vod,rw)
02/03 Bumblebee
02/14 Alita Battle Angel
02/20 The Kid Who Would Be King
03/12 Captain Marvel
03/13 How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
ETA: Eight movies in three months: not a good start! Bodes ill for anything resembling one a week by the end of the year! But you never know. The big problem now is that my job has me working 1-5, and an early bedtime makes it difficult to get out, when I'm on a regular schedule of 4-7 in the fall and my wife can meet me after work for a movie, then it'll be a bit easier.
Not a lot seen in the first quarter this year, partly because of not much interesting being released, part because of my wife wanting to avoid (figurative) plague wandering around the area. And part because we started watching Midsomer Murders on DVD when I started borrowing them from the library! So two video on demands, one rewatch.
Comments under the cut.
Mary Poppins Returns. We, mainly me, wanted to see this because we wanted to see Lin Manuel Miranda do song and dance. Emily Blunt did an excellent Mary, and the movie was quite fun overall. To be honest, though I know I’ve seen the original, I really don’t remember it. This was quite good, and it was interesting after having seen Saving Mr. Banks recently as it gives a different perspective on the Mary Poppins stories.
Tag. OK. This looks like a total waste of celluloid, but it was a surprisingly good movie! And the most surprising thing about it: it is based on a true story! There’s a bunch of old coots off in New Jersey or somewhere who have been playing tag for one month a year since they were in grade school – something like 50 years! They go to ridiculous and absurd lengths to get each other! So the movie has actual truth behind it, obviously heavily altered to make a better story. Anyway, you might actually enjoy this movie, just go in to it with an open mind. One interesting bit of trivia: Hawkeye from the Avengers movies, Jeremy Renner, plays a guy who has never been tagged. In all the MCU movies that he’s appeared in, he was never injured. Here he appears in a truly silly comedy: early in filming he broke both his arms!
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 We watched several of the MCU movies prior to the release of Avengers Endgame as refreshers, and this was one such. I have a love/hate relationship with this movie. I love the story between Peter and Yondu, it’s great. I love Kurt Russel, he’s always been a favorite actor of mine. But I really hated the Ego/planet/demi-god story. The final fight was OK, and within Marvel Comics tradition it was a pretty standard Marvel Comics story, it just didn’t do much for me. That’s the way it is. Lots of great things in this movie, most of them related to the Guardians and not Ego.
Bumblebee. This is a Transformers prequel. The battle between the two factions goes badly, Bumblebee is sent out to scout out a new world for the Autobots to regroup on, unfortunately two Decepticons follow him to Earth. He’s found in a junk yard by a young woman who “fixes” him up, and hijinks ensue with the military, etc. While it had its moments, including a great Rick Roll, it wasn’t much more than *meh*. I.E., a typical Transformers movie.
Alita Battle Angel. I was looking forward to this movie ever since I saw the first poster! This was a manga series that I bought as soon as it was released in the USA by Viz as Battle Angel Alita, absolutely loved it. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, a doctor finds a torso and head of a young woman cyborg in a trash heap. As it happens, he’s a cyberneticist and repairs her, using the body he’d had for his daughter (story….). When the girl/cyborg awakens, she has pretty much zero memory, so the doctor names her Alita. Why the title was flipped around for the movie, who knows. Anyway, floating above the city is a city in the clouds, believed to be paradise. Everybody wants to get to this city (more story), the doctor is believe to be a psycho killer, etc. etc. I really enjoyed this movie and the visuals were very immersive and reminiscent of the manga. I recently re-read the manga, having been lucky to acquire them through a bundle purchase, so they were fresh in my mind. Definitely want to get this on DVD.
The Kid Who Would Be King. A fun popcorn-chewer, i.e. disengage what you know about Arthurian mythos. If you’re a big fan of such, this movie might make your brain hurt. Kid who tries to stand up for others at school but always gets smacked down finds The Sword In The Stone, just in time for the Arthurian Apocalypse and the Return of Morgana. Fun, but lightweight. And Patrick Stewart having a joyous time chewing up some scenery.
Captain Marvel. Another movie that I was really looking forward to, got to see it twice and it was well worth it! Brie actually filmed her scenes for Avengers Endgame BEFORE making Captain Marvel, and in those scenes everybody else’s lines were blacked out, so she was sort of acting blind! For me, that makes her performance all the better! Talk about tight production control! Anyway, Brave Kree Warrior Vers goes to Earth, circa mid 1990s, to capture escaped Scummy Skrull Terrorists, where she encounters much younger SHIELD Agents Fury & Carlson. Things happen, she learns she’s actually a USAF pilot Captain Carol Danvers, and she becomes Captain Marvel, just in time to help save the world from Thanos. I’m quite looking forward to her second and hopefully more movies and appearances, possibly with the Guardians of the Galaxy?
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. To be honest, I wasn’t too interested in seeing this film. I wasn’t very keen on the first, didn’t see any inbetween, but my wife wanted to see a movie and this was about the only thing decent that was showing. And it was a typical How To Train Your Dragon movie. Vikings. Dragons. Other people trying to kidnap and/or kill the dragons. Vikings and dragons have to stop the other people. Thwarted romance. Etc. *Meh*
01/17 Mary Poppins Returns
01/27 Tag (vod)
01/30 Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (vod,rw)
02/03 Bumblebee
02/14 Alita Battle Angel
02/20 The Kid Who Would Be King
03/12 Captain Marvel
03/13 How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
ETA: Eight movies in three months: not a good start! Bodes ill for anything resembling one a week by the end of the year! But you never know. The big problem now is that my job has me working 1-5, and an early bedtime makes it difficult to get out, when I'm on a regular schedule of 4-7 in the fall and my wife can meet me after work for a movie, then it'll be a bit easier.
Not a lot seen in the first quarter this year, partly because of not much interesting being released, part because of my wife wanting to avoid (figurative) plague wandering around the area. And part because we started watching Midsomer Murders on DVD when I started borrowing them from the library! So two video on demands, one rewatch.
Comments under the cut.
Mary Poppins Returns. We, mainly me, wanted to see this because we wanted to see Lin Manuel Miranda do song and dance. Emily Blunt did an excellent Mary, and the movie was quite fun overall. To be honest, though I know I’ve seen the original, I really don’t remember it. This was quite good, and it was interesting after having seen Saving Mr. Banks recently as it gives a different perspective on the Mary Poppins stories.
Tag. OK. This looks like a total waste of celluloid, but it was a surprisingly good movie! And the most surprising thing about it: it is based on a true story! There’s a bunch of old coots off in New Jersey or somewhere who have been playing tag for one month a year since they were in grade school – something like 50 years! They go to ridiculous and absurd lengths to get each other! So the movie has actual truth behind it, obviously heavily altered to make a better story. Anyway, you might actually enjoy this movie, just go in to it with an open mind. One interesting bit of trivia: Hawkeye from the Avengers movies, Jeremy Renner, plays a guy who has never been tagged. In all the MCU movies that he’s appeared in, he was never injured. Here he appears in a truly silly comedy: early in filming he broke both his arms!
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 We watched several of the MCU movies prior to the release of Avengers Endgame as refreshers, and this was one such. I have a love/hate relationship with this movie. I love the story between Peter and Yondu, it’s great. I love Kurt Russel, he’s always been a favorite actor of mine. But I really hated the Ego/planet/demi-god story. The final fight was OK, and within Marvel Comics tradition it was a pretty standard Marvel Comics story, it just didn’t do much for me. That’s the way it is. Lots of great things in this movie, most of them related to the Guardians and not Ego.
Bumblebee. This is a Transformers prequel. The battle between the two factions goes badly, Bumblebee is sent out to scout out a new world for the Autobots to regroup on, unfortunately two Decepticons follow him to Earth. He’s found in a junk yard by a young woman who “fixes” him up, and hijinks ensue with the military, etc. While it had its moments, including a great Rick Roll, it wasn’t much more than *meh*. I.E., a typical Transformers movie.
Alita Battle Angel. I was looking forward to this movie ever since I saw the first poster! This was a manga series that I bought as soon as it was released in the USA by Viz as Battle Angel Alita, absolutely loved it. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, a doctor finds a torso and head of a young woman cyborg in a trash heap. As it happens, he’s a cyberneticist and repairs her, using the body he’d had for his daughter (story….). When the girl/cyborg awakens, she has pretty much zero memory, so the doctor names her Alita. Why the title was flipped around for the movie, who knows. Anyway, floating above the city is a city in the clouds, believed to be paradise. Everybody wants to get to this city (more story), the doctor is believe to be a psycho killer, etc. etc. I really enjoyed this movie and the visuals were very immersive and reminiscent of the manga. I recently re-read the manga, having been lucky to acquire them through a bundle purchase, so they were fresh in my mind. Definitely want to get this on DVD.
The Kid Who Would Be King. A fun popcorn-chewer, i.e. disengage what you know about Arthurian mythos. If you’re a big fan of such, this movie might make your brain hurt. Kid who tries to stand up for others at school but always gets smacked down finds The Sword In The Stone, just in time for the Arthurian Apocalypse and the Return of Morgana. Fun, but lightweight. And Patrick Stewart having a joyous time chewing up some scenery.
Captain Marvel. Another movie that I was really looking forward to, got to see it twice and it was well worth it! Brie actually filmed her scenes for Avengers Endgame BEFORE making Captain Marvel, and in those scenes everybody else’s lines were blacked out, so she was sort of acting blind! For me, that makes her performance all the better! Talk about tight production control! Anyway, Brave Kree Warrior Vers goes to Earth, circa mid 1990s, to capture escaped Scummy Skrull Terrorists, where she encounters much younger SHIELD Agents Fury & Carlson. Things happen, she learns she’s actually a USAF pilot Captain Carol Danvers, and she becomes Captain Marvel, just in time to help save the world from Thanos. I’m quite looking forward to her second and hopefully more movies and appearances, possibly with the Guardians of the Galaxy?
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. To be honest, I wasn’t too interested in seeing this film. I wasn’t very keen on the first, didn’t see any inbetween, but my wife wanted to see a movie and this was about the only thing decent that was showing. And it was a typical How To Train Your Dragon movie. Vikings. Dragons. Other people trying to kidnap and/or kill the dragons. Vikings and dragons have to stop the other people. Thwarted romance. Etc. *Meh*
