What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

White, I saw Shaun the Sheep a second time today in theatres. If you feel strong about CGI, go see Shaun the Sheep and support that kind of art instead

I had a chance to see Mad Max: Fury Road a second time at a dollar theater here in the U.S., but kept putting it off and now it has been replaced by drivel. My fourteen year old daughter keeps asking to see it.

Watched The Babadook last night. I thought it was great. I enjoy a good slow-burn horror movie in the first place, so it was right up my alley.

Finally watched Birdman.

What a vain, pretentious, petty and utterly insufferable film. I hated it probably more than I have hated any recent movie I have seen.

The whole time, I felt like I was sitting next to one of those "THEATAH" nitwits who shit on anything that isn't high motherfucking drama where people sit around and talk about relationships, acting their guts out. The entire movie plays like a theater snob's reaction to the popularity of superhero and comic book films, and I can just imagine self-absorbed culture vultures practically congratulating themselves for appreciating how the movie skewers that childish genre and celebrates real relationship drama and "adult" subject matter. I can just imagine the conversations after the movie that these sort of people had about how it "satirizes" the comic book trend...along with many smirks and condescending tones. Because this is REAL, somehow.

There's an entire run of dialogue in it early on that is more or less an indictment of real-world "formerly great" actors who are now "slumming" in the superhero or genre film ghetto. At that point, I realized that the film had pitched its tent and that I was not on board with it.

No, superhero films are not The Godfather or a fucking IMPORTANT Edward Albee play. But nor are they "apocalypse porn" or some kind of place where "authentic" film, drama and acting go to die. They're pop entertainment, and if you make the mistake of taking them too seriously by affording them the ability to somehow destroy the validity and credibility of mediums and the artists working in them, then you're a fucking idiot.

Formally, it was quite well made and I did appreciate that it called to mind something closer to Godard than most current film. The long takes were impressive. The acting was good. The writing was decent. But the overall tone and condescending attitude toward genre and the audience for genre completely put me off.

I can not believe that it won Best Picture...you always see these lists around Oscar time "what Oscar movies were forgotten" and I think this is absolutely one of them that no one will give a shit about by next year.

YES THANK YOU I HATED IT SO MUCH (see way up thread!)

I hated it more than I've hated a movie in a long, long time. FYI, if you want a perfect palette cleanser, watch "Kingsmen" next like I did on the plane.

Hollywood loves Hollywood. Oscar bait every time.

I found the movie to be a dark comedy. Ed Norton and Keaton had both played superheroes in their careers and they must have had a sense of humor about that to be in a movie with this subject matter. I am fairly sure the tent pitching scene and dialog you mention were meant to be ironic, sorry you missed that. I assume they figured other actors would also be able to laugh at themselves and not feel skewered by the movie, I don't think this was what the movie was about at all. it said more about how playing a certain role could become career defining and box you. It could have been Radarman starring Gary Burghoff with hallucinations that he is Radar O Reilly. I enjoyed the movie, thought it very original..... Except the Black Swan ending. Whiplash had a bit in common with Black Swan as well. I thought Whiplash was the best movie of the year and should have won the Oscar fwiw.

Anyhow the point of the thing wasn't to cast aspersions on the Superhero genre. I think you felt personally attacked or something to have such a strong reaction.

Michael Barnes wrote: No, superhero films are not The Godfather or a fucking IMPORTANT Edward Albee play. But nor are they "apocalypse porn" or some kind of place where "authentic" film, drama and acting go to die. They're pop entertainment, and if you make the mistake of taking them too seriously by affording them the ability to somehow destroy the validity and credibility of mediums and the artists working in them, then you're a fucking idiot.

Preach it, Brother Barnes. Halleluyer and a AMEN! Haven't seen Birdman but this is how I felt when I read Watchmen. Loathed how it tried to teach comic fans how their medium was stupid. And when all the Watchmen lovers crapped on the Snyder film version I was reminded how moronic that giant octopus was.

Green Lantern wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: No, superhero films are not The Godfather or a fucking IMPORTANT Edward Albee play. But nor are they "apocalypse porn" or some kind of place where "authentic" film, drama and acting go to die. They're pop entertainment, and if you make the mistake of taking them too seriously by affording them the ability to somehow destroy the validity and credibility of mediums and the artists working in them, then you're a fucking idiot.

Preach it, Brother Barnes. Halleluyer and a AMEN! Haven't seen Birdman but this is how I felt when I read Watchmen. Loathed how it tried to teach comic fans how their medium was stupid. And when all the Watchmen lovers crapped on the Snyder film version I was reminded how moronic that giant octopus was.

See, I loved the Squid and felt that Moore was basically accepting the idea of enjoying silly super hero comics (or 'funny books' as he calls them) and this was his nod to that. I don't think he was telling us how dumb our medium was... he was embracing it while simultaneously trying to show how you can push it a little further. Now that Squid is why... it brought the whole series down to a more silly kind of level and felt perfect for the medium. Without it the story is much more pretentious and far too serious. Snyder lays the drama on real thick. His version is more preachy if you ask me.

There were no end of problems for me with the removal of that Squid but in all truth I hated the Watchmen movie long before the ending came so it didn't really matter. I actually nodded off in the theater... twice! My biggest problem was the overall polished look, it was too clean, too perfect. It also felt cold, too technical and overly loyal to it's roots in other places which is odd considering how many liberties were taken with the story line. I would have preferred a movie inspired by Watchmen (I generally don't like when books get turned into movies, I already read the book so it's hard for me to give a shit about the movie).

I think the first 35 minutes of The Incredibles does a better job of getting those concepts across. In fact Incredibles is still, by far, my favourite super hero film and probably the ballsiest kids movie I've ever seen. I still can't believe they got away with some of those very necessary but extremely unpopular views on how to talk to children and no one seemed to notice or care.

As for Birdman, I have almost no desire to see it.

Saw Hector and the Search for Happiness.

Really, truly great movie. Really enjoyed it.

Last weekend I saw Argo. I'm not an Affleck fan, but he did well in this film. I liked it overall. Not something I'd want to watch multiple times though.

Death Proof - Watched the extended release. Never seen the grindhouse version, but since its shorter I wish I had. The whole first hour of this movie could be cut and you'd miss nothing. Unless you're really into feet and uninteresting small talk. Final chase was pretty good though and Russell nailed every scene.

Green Lantern wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: No, superhero films are not The Godfather or a fucking IMPORTANT Edward Albee play. But nor are they "apocalypse porn" or some kind of place where "authentic" film, drama and acting go to die. They're pop entertainment, and if you make the mistake of taking them too seriously by affording them the ability to somehow destroy the validity and credibility of mediums and the artists working in them, then you're a fucking idiot.

Preach it, Brother Barnes. Halleluyer and a AMEN! Haven't seen Birdman but this is how I felt when I read Watchmen. Loathed how it tried to teach comic fans how their medium was stupid. And when all the Watchmen lovers crapped on the Snyder film version I was reminded how moronic that giant octopus was.

I read The Watchmen right before 9/11, and it seriously freaked me out and made me paranoid. I guess I don't have a lot of my identity tied up in comics, so I just thought it was cool. Haven't seen Birdman yet but from the trailers it seems a little heavy-handed and obvious.

San Andreas - Surprisingly this didn't suck. Its another popcorn disaster flick, but within that genre its one of the better ones.

Men at Work - I loved this movie as a teenager and hadn't watched it in many years. Still holds up for me. Classic.

Mad Dog wrote: Men at Work - I loved this movie as a teenager and hadn't watched it in many years. Still holds up for me. Classic.

I agree!

I know it's from 1990, but between this, They Live, and The Thing, I hold Keith David up there with the all-time 80's greats.