Movies Seen 2016, May and June
Feb. 18th, 2017 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayne5/05 Captain America: Civil War
5/06 Jungle Book
5/08 Keanu
5/13 Money Monster
5/19 The Huntsman: Winter's War
5/22 Angry Birds
6/04 X-Men Apocalypse
6/20 The Nice Guys
6/24 Central Intelligence
6/26 Now You See Me 2
6/28 The Lobster
Again, not going to talk about all of them, or at least in any exhaustive detail. If I don't talk about a movie, my opinion is probably *meh*.
Captain America: it was interesting to see how they broke up the Avengers and what sides various people took. Again, loved seeing Berlin, though we did see the American Embassy and it was not the building seen in the film. Though I’m not a Spiderman fan, I really liked his intro and am looking forward to seeing how they treat him in this version of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) as I didn’t care for the other MCU. The other’s treatment of the Fantastic Four absolutely sucked. I don’t know how much involvement Whedon had in this, but I suspect he wrote the broad strokes for the future arc and I’m really looking forward to things like the Black Panther movie.
Jungle Book. Interesting, excellent CGI, and who can complain about voice acting by the likes of ScarJo and Edris Elba?
Keanu: as much as I loved the Key & Peele show on Comedy Central, this movie was more a novelty for me rather than a good movie. It had its highs, but it really had no repeat value for me, which was disappointing. I’d much rather watch a couple of hours of curated Best of K&P.
Money Monster. This was an interesting film. Take a TV personality like CNBC’s Jim Cramer and sneak in a guy who lost $40,000, all his money, on a “sure bet”. And the guy who lost everything has an explosives vest and a gun. And it’s during a live broadcast. The Cramer-like character starts looking in to “the sure bet” that he shilled and finds “goings on” behind the scenes, resulting in lots of people getting screwed. My wife and I really liked this movie, I thought they managed the tension well, and the acting by the likes of George Clooney, Julie Roberts, and it was directed by Jodi Foster! Pretty cool movie.
X-Men Apocalypse: Personally, in my ever so humble opinion, it could have benefited by not having been made. The Apocalypse character just didn’t do it for me, I’m really tired of Egyptian deities or aliens masked as Egyptian deities, just make them flat-out aliens, PLEASE. I don’t think it contributed anything to the Young X-Men franchise, but I could be wrong.
The Nice Guys. Testosterone-fueled romp. Some amusing stuff, some interesting plot devices, OK movie. Very limited repeat viewing value for me, as in I won’t bother buying a copy or looking for showings on satellite.
Central Intelligence: I really liked this movie! I would class it as one of the more fun movies of ‘16. Take today’s Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, put him back in his high school days as a very obese nerd. The only person who was ever kind to him was the high school track hero/homecoming king. And now The Rock is a CIA agent who needs The Hero’s help. I thought this was a tremendously fun film, and it was kind of aspirational. I should look for a used copy while I’m here in Phoenix.
Now You See Me 2. My wife had an objection: they recast the female lead. I found out that she was pregnant, which makes the recast a bit understandable. But the norm if a male lead from the first movie was unavailable would be they’d probably delay the project, so it’s probably a valid point. Anyway, the first movie was better, but the second movie still had a lot of good stuff in it and held to the basic concepts that we learned in the first. Interesting stuff. The second movie doesn’t really stand on its own, if you liked the first one I think there’s a decent chance you’ll like the second.
The Lobster. This is one weird-ass film. In this world, which seems a parallel to ours, if you’re not married by the time you’re a certain age, you’re taken to The Hotel with all the other single men and women in the area. You now have 45 days or you’re turned in to an animal. Your choice of animal. If you try to escape, well, one of the activities for the residents is hunting parties! If you’re caught, the penalty (if I recall correctly) is you’re transformed in to your animal. If you find someone at The Hotel with whom you hit it off, fine and dandy – you’re both safe, you get married, and you’re set up with a nice flat in the city and can continue your life. If not: animal-time for you! I thought it was going to be a strange comedy, and it was surprisingly rather dark and didn’t have nearly as much humor as I would have liked. We had a group of six and we all left asking “What did we just see?” I don’t think anyone had a particularly good answer to that. I have no plans of buying a copy of this, though I might watch it again in a few years if I’m given the opportunity to see if the passage of time has changed my opinion of it. VERY low on the scale if I were to rate all of the movies from best to worst. It wasn’t a bad movie, per se, it was just very strange, and not in a good way.
5/06 Jungle Book
5/08 Keanu
5/13 Money Monster
5/19 The Huntsman: Winter's War
5/22 Angry Birds
6/04 X-Men Apocalypse
6/20 The Nice Guys
6/24 Central Intelligence
6/26 Now You See Me 2
6/28 The Lobster
Again, not going to talk about all of them, or at least in any exhaustive detail. If I don't talk about a movie, my opinion is probably *meh*.
Captain America: it was interesting to see how they broke up the Avengers and what sides various people took. Again, loved seeing Berlin, though we did see the American Embassy and it was not the building seen in the film. Though I’m not a Spiderman fan, I really liked his intro and am looking forward to seeing how they treat him in this version of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) as I didn’t care for the other MCU. The other’s treatment of the Fantastic Four absolutely sucked. I don’t know how much involvement Whedon had in this, but I suspect he wrote the broad strokes for the future arc and I’m really looking forward to things like the Black Panther movie.
Jungle Book. Interesting, excellent CGI, and who can complain about voice acting by the likes of ScarJo and Edris Elba?
Keanu: as much as I loved the Key & Peele show on Comedy Central, this movie was more a novelty for me rather than a good movie. It had its highs, but it really had no repeat value for me, which was disappointing. I’d much rather watch a couple of hours of curated Best of K&P.
Money Monster. This was an interesting film. Take a TV personality like CNBC’s Jim Cramer and sneak in a guy who lost $40,000, all his money, on a “sure bet”. And the guy who lost everything has an explosives vest and a gun. And it’s during a live broadcast. The Cramer-like character starts looking in to “the sure bet” that he shilled and finds “goings on” behind the scenes, resulting in lots of people getting screwed. My wife and I really liked this movie, I thought they managed the tension well, and the acting by the likes of George Clooney, Julie Roberts, and it was directed by Jodi Foster! Pretty cool movie.
X-Men Apocalypse: Personally, in my ever so humble opinion, it could have benefited by not having been made. The Apocalypse character just didn’t do it for me, I’m really tired of Egyptian deities or aliens masked as Egyptian deities, just make them flat-out aliens, PLEASE. I don’t think it contributed anything to the Young X-Men franchise, but I could be wrong.
The Nice Guys. Testosterone-fueled romp. Some amusing stuff, some interesting plot devices, OK movie. Very limited repeat viewing value for me, as in I won’t bother buying a copy or looking for showings on satellite.
Central Intelligence: I really liked this movie! I would class it as one of the more fun movies of ‘16. Take today’s Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, put him back in his high school days as a very obese nerd. The only person who was ever kind to him was the high school track hero/homecoming king. And now The Rock is a CIA agent who needs The Hero’s help. I thought this was a tremendously fun film, and it was kind of aspirational. I should look for a used copy while I’m here in Phoenix.
Now You See Me 2. My wife had an objection: they recast the female lead. I found out that she was pregnant, which makes the recast a bit understandable. But the norm if a male lead from the first movie was unavailable would be they’d probably delay the project, so it’s probably a valid point. Anyway, the first movie was better, but the second movie still had a lot of good stuff in it and held to the basic concepts that we learned in the first. Interesting stuff. The second movie doesn’t really stand on its own, if you liked the first one I think there’s a decent chance you’ll like the second.
The Lobster. This is one weird-ass film. In this world, which seems a parallel to ours, if you’re not married by the time you’re a certain age, you’re taken to The Hotel with all the other single men and women in the area. You now have 45 days or you’re turned in to an animal. Your choice of animal. If you try to escape, well, one of the activities for the residents is hunting parties! If you’re caught, the penalty (if I recall correctly) is you’re transformed in to your animal. If you find someone at The Hotel with whom you hit it off, fine and dandy – you’re both safe, you get married, and you’re set up with a nice flat in the city and can continue your life. If not: animal-time for you! I thought it was going to be a strange comedy, and it was surprisingly rather dark and didn’t have nearly as much humor as I would have liked. We had a group of six and we all left asking “What did we just see?” I don’t think anyone had a particularly good answer to that. I have no plans of buying a copy of this, though I might watch it again in a few years if I’m given the opportunity to see if the passage of time has changed my opinion of it. VERY low on the scale if I were to rate all of the movies from best to worst. It wasn’t a bad movie, per se, it was just very strange, and not in a good way.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-18 09:30 pm (UTC)Make it "you get turned into a food animal and butchered to feed the upright citizens" and you have a much darker version of Logan's Run.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-19 04:21 am (UTC)A house cat could be good, so could a well-owned standard poodle.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-19 03:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-19 04:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-20 12:40 am (UTC)I really enjoyed Angry Birds, too. I watched on the recommendation from a friend here and found it was tastefully rude and funny.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-20 01:09 am (UTC)Angry Birds was certainly amusing, rude, and funny. It was interesting in that it actually had character growth.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-21 01:23 am (UTC)What I did like about Angry Birds was that it wasn't about the damned game (which I've only seen reference to but never played). I thought Chuck was the best character.