Movie Recommendations

[Adorno]

I've lost track of the debate. I didn't argue there we no other gangs than the orcs.
I pointed out the orcs are portrayed in a way you can portray black, crime ridden communities today.
It's true the black and latino gangs are also there, but focus has shifted to the orcs.
As that rapper said: "The characters in #Bright live in a timeline where racism is gone... cause we hate ork now ?". ["ork" is his spelling]
It's simplified, but not entirely wrong. The black/latino racism has been dwarfed by the orcs.

 

[Bluehawk]

[Temuzu] But who are the elves? [/Temuzu]

 

[kalarhan]

[Temuzu] But who are the elves? [/Temuzu]

the 1% 

it is funny to see this reaction to the movie, as I am not from those parts of the world and so I have a more neutral/International reaction to it. To me it is just a cool-ish fantasy movie that could spawn a nice follow up. Netflix is not restricted to 1 or 2 countries 

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

[Temuzu] But who are the elves? [/Temuzu]

Stop making a mockery of Tolkien's work. Obviously the elves aren't supposed to be some kind of racist Jewish surrogate. That's the dwarves.

 

[Cordor]

nono, jews are gnomes, dwarves are scottish a jew can't be scottish. Elves are supposed to be ((((they))))

 

[ErkutErdem]

I recommend "das leben der anderen" it was a nice movie that took place in East Germany.

 

[Antonis]

True story, too. In a way, it happened to the guy that played the Stasi agent. I think his ex-wife sued him for libel(and won) despite being evidence of her ratting him out. She said sth like "I didn't know I was talking to Stasi" or something similar.

 

[crodio]

I wanna see that film
I saw "Jacqueline Argentine"
A mockumentary. About a French girl (slightly waifuable) that is a haxxor in the French Intelligence and wants to leak some stuff.  It was fun. Also a bit 2deep but it's ok. I'll have to see it again to understand some of it because I was talking and eating as I saw it. Filmed mostly in Argentina.

 

[rebelknight]

Will bright get a sequel after all this controversy and bad reviews?

Edit: apparently a sequel is in the work.
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/01/bright-netflix-sequel

Man, whoever wrote this article is so full of themselve.

''Worst film of 2017''? have we seen the same movie?
I can name at least 3 worst movies than Bright with good ''reviews''.

 

[Dystopian]

I've lost track of the debate. I didn't argue there we no other gangs than the orcs.
I pointed out the orcs are portrayed in a way you can portray black, crime ridden communities today.
It's true the black and latino gangs are also there, but focus has shifted to the orcs.
As that rapper said: "The characters in #Bright live in a timeline where racism is gone... cause we hate ork now ?". ["ork" is his spelling]
It's simplified, but not entirely wrong. The black/latino racism has been dwarfed by the orcs.

I saw Bright and it wasn't as bad as people made it out to be. The writing was by far the worst part of the movie. Some dialogue seemed so forced it was laughable. But isn't the Ork racism supposed to show exactly that, racism? Perhaps maybe in a Twilight Zone "lets use fantasy characters so no one gets triggered way" and some people will be offended by that but to me its a way to reach out to audiences (some *cough* white people) that otherwise would scoff at a regular movie about real life racism. I think the point gets across. Note that not every movie has to go in depth about real life complex social issues just because.


Bright gets like a 4/10

 

[Krik]

I watched A Ghost Story last night, because I'm a pawn for RLM and the movies they recommend. Really good movie, if you have a decent amount of patience.

 

[BenKenobi]

The one from 1980s? The last film of Fred Astaire? Good pick! 

 

[Krik]

It's a 2017 film, though the synopsis of the 80s one seems like it might make for a good watch one night.

 

[BenKenobi]

Well, it is a good watch. I has Fred Astaire in it!

 

[IA]

The one from 1980s? The last film of Fred Astaire? Good pick! 

That was the last film, or next to last film, for a lot of the leads.

 

[DanAngleland]

Well, it is a good watch. I has Fred Astaire in it!

The excitement of thinking of Fred Astaire has caused you to make the first typo I've ever seen from you 

 

[Calradianın bilgesi]

the florida project is the most beautiful thing I've seen in last a few months. So intimate and touching, huge sense of detail without big dramatic breakpoints.

 

[BenKenobi]

Well, it is a good watch. I has Fred Astaire in it!

The excitement of thinking of Fred Astaire has caused you to make the first typo I've ever seen from you 

Damn right. There was no better entertainer.

 

[Lumos]

• • I finally know who Ben's avatar is of. Sweet!
    
    
    Hold on to your butts, boys and girls, 'cause this will be one for the ages: Here are my very abridged ratings of stuff (not necessarily new) I saw over the holidays and just now:
    • "The BFG":
    Knew nothing about this except that a book exists. Moderately entertaining. Managed to predict the entire third act after the first 15-20 minutes, which was honestly rather amusing. Okay but nothing special.
    6/10*, perhaps more if you have knowledge of the book and/or interest in seeing it. Moral of the story: Avoid fizzy drinks.
    
    • "The Foreigner":
    It's like Taken, but with Jackie Chan, his daughter dies, and the IRA did it. Pretty good. Mostly felt like two stories moving along fairly separately, and Jackie Chan almost screwed it up big-time, but I liked it. Pierce Brosnan's Oyrish accent steals the show. Also never thought I'd see Roose Bolton get his arse kicked by Jackie Chan.
    7/10. Moral of the story: One should acquire a very particular set of skills and be a badass dad.
    
    
    • [url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3183660]"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them"
    • :
    Aye, it took me that long to see it despite my username. Colin Farrell didn't have an Oyrish accent like Brosnan above, alas. I'm not sure if I've seen Edmayne in anything before, but he seems to be doing well. Film was enjoyable, but kinda complete bull**** in terms of "backwards compatibility" with the established universe. But eh, I don't really care that much. It was mostly fun, and I liked the idea of evil cultists being anti-wizard. Besides, I want to see Jude Law as Dumbledore in the sequel.
    7/10. Moral of the story: FIX YOUR DAMN SUITCASE should its locks be dodgy.
    
    • "Man Up":
    (Rewatch) A rom-com with Simon Pegg, and I really like Simon Pegg. Also Pierce Brosnan's wife (he casts his shade over this entire section), or rather Olivia Williams, the actress who played his wife in "The Ghost Writer", also shows up, as does Tommen Baratheon and Balin from the Hobbit movies, as well as that doctor who was healing Chewbacca's arm in TFA. Overall a fun movie, if a little dumb, but hey, I liked it.
    7/10. Moral of the story: Do NOT be like Shaun. Holy God, no matter what you do, DO NOT be like him.
    
  
  
  I've said what I think about all others I saw over the holidays, I think, namely Bright. Others were rewatches.
  
  
  
  And now the Mythica series (available in 1080p free of charge on Amazon Prime, and oh God, why didn't I know that there were so many films on there) which I saw over today and yesterday:
  (Again, the story -- STARRING KEVIN SORBO -- revolves around Marek, a.k.a. Miss Overacting, our left-handed (yay!) sorcerer/warlock necromancer protagonist and her mates:
  - Mr Aaaaargh (Thane) the fighter/paladin, who likes taking arrows like Boromir, and who can't swing a sword, take damage, or fall on the ground without letting a big "Aaaaargh" out;
  - Miss Tabula Rasa (Teela) the cleric/monk, who isn't strictly blank-faced, but that's the impression her face leaves in me for some reason, and whose relationship with her goddess isn't made particularly clear;
  - and Dagen, the snarky half-elven rogue (with a 2-level dip in Fighter to pick up Archery and Action Surge) whom I actually enjoy a fair bit when he's not being an annoying prick.
  Together this party of D&D multiclassers in a homebrewed setting wander around, do silly things, and fight Matt Mercer, who is the Big Bad. That's cool innit?)
  
  Here we go (these ones aren't that abridged):
  
  • [url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3405714]"Mythica: A Quest for Heroes"
  • :
  In which Marek gathers the party, completely forgets about Mr Friendzone (who helps her in an important manner), fights the CGI ogre and the rubber spiders, and saves The Sister and The McGuffin. There's also a fighting scene that is shot in broad daylight, with some awful filter placed on it to make it look like night (fun fact: the first time I saw this film in 2014/15, I completely failed to notice the filter, and only thought the orcs were blind to not see our OBVIOUSLY SNEAKING, DON'T LOOK AT ME characters). Thane and Teela, and Marek and Dagen are established as the pairings.
  
  Cheesy! 6/10. Kevin Sorbo scene time**: 3:11. Matt Mercer rating***: N/A. Moral of the story: Er. Not sure. If you're a slave girl/wizard with a crooked foot, walking issues, and no melee combat training, the big ogre will K.O. all your more combat-trained friends with one hit, but will then keep rolling natural 1s repeatedly whilst you roll a few natural 20s against it? Oh, I got it! Moral of the story: DICE ARE NOT FAIR! (Alternatively: The power of the Left Hand Side is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be... unrealistic.)
  
  • "Mythica: The Darkspore":
  In which The Sister and The McGuffin from the previous movie dies and is stolen (respectively) in the first 2 minutes. Marek and co. go after the McGuffin, part 2, which is actually an important item called a "darkspore". On the way, they save some arsehole who Marek immediately falls in love with for no ****ing Reason whilst Dagen tells her that the arsehole is a traitor. I won't spoil the film, but that whole thing was bull****, man, I mean, he was almost walking around with "TRAITOR" written on his face.
  
  Also, Matt Mercer voices over his own lieutenant, which is odd (especially since the lieutenant never appears in another film). Anyhow, they go to a desert and fight a(n undead?) dragon and scare off Matt Mercer. Some neat things happen, but the ****in' faux love interest (the saved arsehole) really ground my gears. Thane and Teela confirm their feelings for each other, and Marek is released from slavery at the end.
  
  Less cheese but more bull****. 5/10. Kevin Sorbo scene time: 4:51. Matt Mercer rating: 3 stars. Moral of the story: Again, I honestly don't know. Kevin Sorbo looks awkward whilst pretending to ride a horse whilst superimposed over mock battle footage?
  
  • "Mythica: The Necromancer":
  In which Kevin Sorbo, who promised to teach Marek in the previous movie, actually does it. He tells her that Matt Mercer can detect her if she touches a "darkspore". There's 4 of 'em in total, btw, and Matt already has 2. He'll be super unstoppable if he gets all four, becoming the Lich King.
  Meanwhile Marek's previous slave owner, very pissed off and randomly promoted from some pimp to the master of the Thieves' Guild, takes Thane hostage and tells the others to go get -- by pure chance -- darkspore №3. Guess who shows up? Yep, Matt Mercer. He steals the darkspore too, but then Marek kills Teela (Teela sacrifices herself), heals herself and the mortally wounded Dagen, and scares Matt away. Poor Matt.
  Anyhow, Thane is saved and the thieves' guild master gets murdered. Kevin Sorbo tells Marek that the last darkspore is in a place where Matt Mercer can never find it.
  Also, Teela (whilst alive) is worried about pursuing a relationship with Thane, and Marek (all the time) is uncertain about pursuing a relationship with the womanising Dagen. Pretty sure they (the latter two) kissed yet once more.
  
  Less bull****, but more soap. 6/10. Kevin Sorbo scene time: 4:24. Matt Mercer rating: 4 stars. Moral of the story: If you're a life-stealing necromancer and you need energy to save your friends, you should kill your (HEALER, albeit a little troubled) friend in an act of noble sacrifice instead of feeding off of the dozen or so mooks in the vicinity. Yup. Because that totally makes sense. *sigh*...
  
  • "Mythica: The Iron Crown":
  In which the gang (down Teela) spend the entire time being chased by: a) some ***** with a pathetic C-Class airship; b) three unkillable undead assassins; c) a trio of hostile adventurers. Oh, and they're on some sort of a "war wagon" machine that totally doesn't look like a rig mounted on a car, promise. Anyhow, Zombie Girl (a spoiled nobleman's daughter who accidentally gets her mind erased and starts chewing on people's cloaks) steals the show.
  Hey, turns out that the airship woman actually had the last darkspore and that there's a thing called the Iron Crown that, when equipped (makes you the King of the Dwarves and also) allows you to wield the Hammer of Tek, which is the thing that killed the Lich King the previous time. (Tek is the God of the Forge who died whilst doing that.)
  The fights in this one are shiiiite - everyone has worse-than-stormtrooper aim, especially our heroes, who literally can't hit **** five to ten feet away. Pathetic.
  Anyhow, they chase each other and end up finding Teela, who is reincarnated as a combo of Teela and her goddess in one body. There was more relationship angst before that, as Teela spoke through Marek (and started making out with Thane for Dagen to see, awk-waaard!!!) and whatnot, but at the end, Matt Mercer shows up (after a long fight with Kevin Sorbo) and demands the last darkspore. He has the Iron Crown and has had it for a while, and Marek gives him the darkspore for the Crown (hoping to find the hammer to kill him later on) and allowing him to become the lich king and start the culling of all living people in the world. nice job, marek. At least she and Dagen finally kiss properly at the end, implying they get together.
  
  Less soap, back to bull****. 5/10. Kevin Sorbo scene time: 10:26. Matt Mercer rating: 4 stars. Moral of the story: Learn to ****ing aim, you tosser, you're supposed to be a ranged class. Also applies to Dagen, who scores three headshots at the end back-to-back, but spends the entire movie missing his marks. Should've dipped in Ranger 1 for Huner's Mark...
  
  • "Mythica: The Godslayer", called "The Dragonslayer" in the UK for no reason:
  In which Marek spends 3/4 of the film whining about how dumb giving the darkspore to Matt Mercer was. Anyhow, Thane and Teela are now leading the resistance against Matt's massive **** armies, and Marek and Dagen are going to X to go to Y to go to Z to find Tek's hammer to kill Matt. Once they're at Z, Teela (or rather, the goddess within her) randomly decides that Marek needs to be stopped, so she and Thane go to Z and manage to get Marek to defect to Matt Mercer. After a crazy plan to get Tek's hammer out of the underworld, Dagen gets given the hammer by Hodor, but dies. Marek doesn't actually defect to Matt, but helps him kill the gods anyways, then kills Matt after all (using dagen's hodor's hammer), but also dies in the process due to her "connection" with the darkspore (elaborated in her seemingly retconned backstory).
  At the end, we see Dagen and Marek on a sunny beach, kissing (a contingency plan they discussed earlier). But are they dead? They should be? But why didn't we see the mists we otherwise saw in the underworld? You know what? Who cares.
  
  Less bull****, back to cheese. (Completing the ouroboric cycle!) 6/10. Kevin Sorbo scene time: 03:40. Matt Mercer rating: 5 stars. Moral of the story: Matt Mercer is pretty cool.

...
Not a bad series, to be honest; I whine about things I like. The whole is more than the sum of its parts, and I'll rate the whole thing as 6.5/10. If you like budget fantasy (and have Amazon Prime), I'd recommend it. You can do much worse than Mythica.


* A reference of what my ratings tend to stand for can be found

Spoiler: in here

All are completely subjectively awarded, of course.
Out of ten, i.e. IMDb-compliant ratings:
1 = trash, not worth seeing at all, avoid
2 = like the above, but with at least some semblance of something noteworthy
3 = just rubbish, unfortunately
4 = lacking in some ways, but almost okay
5 = average, with nothing else to say
6 = fair, yet not quite interesting enough to leave a lasting impression
7 = "I liked this film, it's nice and I'd recommend it" (I liked it, not "it's objectively good")
8 = like the above, but the film is pretty good
9 = even better than the above; an exceptional film that has left a lasting impression
10 = exceptional and strikingly impressive; would watch again immediately or on the next day after seeing it

I've recently thought about it and found that this is the scale that I've been gravitating towards, so it's nice to document it somewhere. Be interesting to see if it changes over the years...

** Kevin Sorbo scene times are the total duration of all scenes involving him, even when he's off-screen. An exception is made for bits of flashbacks that might technically be his, but he's both offscreen and not narrating; those times (though quite few) are not counted.
*** Unlike the film ratings, Matt Mercer ratings can be approximated to stars for hotels, i.e. out of five.



P.S.: I broke the list formatting by accident, but decided to keep it. Better like this, methinks.

P.P.S.: writing about "fantastic beasts" reminds me of Jude Law, which reminded me that I've not seen "Enemy at the Gates", or at least I only remember bits and bobs - Jude Law scoring headshots at the beginning (no need for a sweetspot when you go for the head ), then those weird sheets with his name and crosses for his kills on them (couldn't figure out what they were), and then wondering why these people are chasing each other around those ruins and where the bloody gate is?... So yes, I must've been very young indeed. Wouldn't've also completely forgotten that Rachel Weisz participates if I hadn't been...

 

[Arvenski]

Wait, you didn't know who Fred Astaire was, Lumos? Okay, it's my turn to mock you now.

Spoiler

Seriously, though, it's probably understandable; I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people today don't know who Fred Astaire was. What can I say; my mom likes his movies, so I've seen him a bit, especially when I was younger. The only movie with him in it that I've seen recently was Holiday Inn, which is actually pretty good. Fred Astaire's not the protagonist, though; his character's kind of a ****.