Rate Movies You've Recently Watched.

Lol his sights are down on that mp7.

Immortals 5/10 - Was in the mood for some Greek mythology so watched this. More or less forgetable. Good presentation basically a carbon copy of 300s visual style but the story is all over the place. It tells its own uninteresting story with various myths sprinkled in.

Liked its take on the minotaur though, thought it was interesting. Movie should have been ares and athena splitting heads in the labrynth.

This was moderately bad. I have no idea about the history or making of this but it seems like a film festival specific type movie? I don't know what that means really, just a vibe. Also with it being almost exclusively limited to one actress, most of her interactions with others are via cell phone or video calls, it feel like a vehicle to show her off. And I mean hey, she's not at all bad to show off.

5.5/10; 1hr 20min it was an easy watch.

Independent, short film, from a guy out of South Carolina. There was some quality here but overall the atrocious child acting was distracting. The writing was way too on point and heavy handed. For a while I really thought it was some Kirk Cameron Christian film. Turns out it isn't, but there's an attempt at some big twist at the end.

5/10 max.

Lord of illusions. Only thing that hurts it on rewatch are the special effects which haven't aged that well. They were cool for the time.

Scott Bakula was miscast. He wasn't bad, but it should have been a grittier, less good looking actor for the lead.

Still an enjoyable film 7/10.

Ps.. Famke at her near peak looks.

Caliane said:

got around to Encanto. What a bizarre movie. No conflict at all.

songs were hit or miss. a couple ok. even those could have used more time on the burner.

boo hoo, I'm not special, the rest of my family is. Boo hoo, I'm special and thats stressful. Boohoo, Im special and thats stressful. stop trying manage the family! boohoo, I was trying so hard to keep us special, I forgot that family is what makes us special. the end.

an entire host of subservient townsfolk. never touches on where the magic actually comes from. or any dangers from the outside world. Even the grandmothers deal is barely existent. like hell, Mr. Banks in Mary poppins is way more harsh, and such to need intervention.

Movie just singing with no plot.
5/10.

Feels like ammunition in the gun of people that think childrens movies just need noise, and have no bar for quality. Clearly they have a point..

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We felt similarly about Encanto and were unimpressed. 5 year old also wasn't captured which is a big miss in terms of animated musical bright flashy thing. On to our latest...

Mission Impossible I (6/10): Phew, this was worse than I remembered. The sequence of planting the glasses to catch the guy buying the NOC list was something like 40 minutes long and basically nothing happened. Basically. Other than the whole team thing at the very end. Otherwise it was 40 minutes of people walking around. The whole movie just dragged on and on. Brian de Palma had odd camera angles, bad camera angles. It jumped from one thing to the next with no details. Stealing the NOC list from Langley was still cool but not near as interesting as I had remembered. Possible that recent stuff since then detracts from how cool it was back then.

Mission Impossible II (4/10): Boy, this was complete dog shit. Complete. I did not have anywhere near the memory of this being such trash. John Woo was obviously not the right fit for a Mission Impossible movie. Not only that, it took an hour and forty fucking minutes before a single slow-mo shot of some birds! What kind of lazy ass John Woo effort is that? We had slow-mo looking, slow-mo winches, slow-mo wenches, slow-mo roundhouse kicks, flip kicks, drop kicks, axe kicks, slow-mo Tom Cruise long hair. It goes on. And on. And on.

The good news is that it hopefully gets parabolically better from here on out. I don't have fond memories of 3 and JJ "lens flare" Abrams directed it so I'll temper my expectations. But Phillip Seymour Hoffman is in it, Simon Pegg comes in. Maybe tomorrow night. Gearing up for the new one.

Mission: Impossible III (6/10): This was way better than 2. It is basically a 10/10 when compared directly. Seems to kick off the "Scenes of Tom Cruise Running" requirement. Lots of running. The bridge scene was immediately memorable, Tom slamming in to the side of the car when the missile hits. Philip Seymour Hoffman was pretty great as a villain. Either he was way bored and disinterested or he just played a disconnected psycho that well. Was pretty obvious JJ Abrams did it, movie was very bright, very lens flare.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (7/10): Really feels like it took 4 movies for them to come in to what they wanted this franchise to be. If it had gone more the Mission Impossible I route and steadily improved that would have been cool, instead they went this direction and figured out what to do. More Tom Cruise running. This time running DOWN a building as a bonus. Impressive. Cool set pieces. Ridiculousness. Battle in the Carvana was hilarious. Paula Patton kind of didn't fit in, villain was sort of week. But the rest made up for it. Brad Bird did a great job, probably best yet hitting serious notes, levity, and action. Don't remember if there was a motorcycle in this one. Pretty sure he rode one in 1 - 3.

Will be a while before we're able to continue but we still want to get through the rest. Wife is more interested now that they're getting better and more modern.

Movies while traveling for work:

Simulant (4/10): Crap. Unfortunate. Had a mega crush on Jordana Brewster from back in The Faculty and Chuck days. Haven't seen her in anything in years and she looks off now. Not really relevant to how bad this was.

Fist of the Condor (6/10): Martial arts kung fu movie from Chile. Not really going to be too hard on this one. Short. Clean. Just a series of martial arts fights back-to-back with some voice overs and a light story to connect them. No fluff or wasted time. Plot wasn't anything special and they tried a little hard to make it in to something. It was decent background movie. Would watch more from the director / team. This One looks promising.

Wolf Garden (4/10): Terrible. Boring. Not even going to bother to try and find a positive.

Black Demon (2/10): I lasted about 20 minutes and couldn't even bother. And I watch / suffer through just about anything.

Fatal Call (3/10): I thought this might be cool b/c Kevin Sorbo was in it, and Jack Snyder directed it and his name is very close to Zack Snyder, so maybe that would count for something. It didn't though. Didn't even finish watching it, got distracted updating Project Schedules and budget sheets for meetings the next morning.

Side note: While looking for links on IMDB I was made aware that Kristen Stewart and Dylan Meyer (?) are a "LGBTQIA+ Power Couple of Hollywood." Criteria was not defined.

Watched Wreck it Ralph and Ralph Breaks the Internet the last couple of nights with our son. For starters, why isn't the second one called Ralph Wrecks the Internet? It seems so obvious. Either way, both were pretty good. I'd never seen them before but enjoyed it. Compared to some of the recent animated stuff we've watched like Moana or Luca or something else I can't even remember at this point.

Watched The Thing the other night. It was billed as a "prequel" to the original 1982 movie of the same name. It really isnt. 95% of the movie is a shitty remake of the amazing original. The last 90 seconds of the film is the "prequel". The cast looked solid and there was hope Mary Elizabeth Winstead would do a shower scene or something. Alas, no. It really is just a shitty remake of the original. Some scenes are almost copy/pasted from the 1982 film. Do not watch. 2/10