Moments when a piece of entertainment completely rocked you.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jun 01, 2019 8:38 pm

Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

I found myself grinning like an idiot through most of the movie. Finally a giant monster movie that has discovered pacing. And keeps hitting us with giant monsters beating the crap out of each other and devastating their surroundings.

-Username17

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sun Jun 02, 2019 5:04 am

I’ve always been a fan of King Ghidorah, although I’ve always wondered about the legitimacy of his royal authority.

I’m hoping to see this in an actual theater, and not as a horrendously under-lit bootleg bought at a seedy bar, like I did the first one.

Is most of the movie taken up by useless humans like the previous film? I hope not.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Jun 02, 2019 5:32 am

The key is that the useless humans have their action interspersed with giant monsters breaking shit. So instead of having all the action you care about in the last fifteen minutes, you get your first giant monster breath weapon inside the first twenty minutes.

-Username17

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sun Jun 02, 2019 6:47 pm

That's excellent news. I love well paced action.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Jun 03, 2019 1:43 am

All the reviewers that don't like this film can fuck themselves with forks. Yes, there are humans, deal with it. This is a beautiful, epic film. You will believe a giant radioactive lizard can stomp.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:11 pm

I saw the Live Action remake of Aladdin on Saturday (side note: I have no idea why I'm still watching my ex-GF's kid for free at this point. Like literally, no idea). Anyhow, Will Smith was a pretty good Will Smith genie, I liked how they made Jasmine more of an active participant, how "Prince Ali" was actually awkward and scared shitless instead of cocky. I laughed my ass off when Jasmine asked "Prince Ali" to point out "Ababwa" on a map. Also the chick who plays Jasmine has some fucking pipes, yo.

Honestly, I give it a 7/10. Not groundbreaking by any means, but worth a matinee showing when you find yourself entertaining a child when you didn't expect to.

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Wed Jun 05, 2019 8:20 pm

Barry Season 1 was good. Season 2 is a bit much of the actors being bad at acting, which is just cringe-y. But Episode 5 was different.

Almost the entire episode was fight scenes, and Barry came out slightly better at the end because he made the choice to be a better person. Now there's nobody currently investigating anything he has done, because he spared Ronny's life.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Wed Jun 05, 2019 10:27 pm

I read The Lost City of the Monkey God which is a book chronicling an expedition to firmly locate a major Precolumbian metropolis deep in the jungles of Ecuador and begin scientifically exploring it. These types of archaeological expeditions offer fodder for role-playing games (lost ruin exploration). I enjoyed it for non-gaming reasons, too. The book is accessible, factually based on eye-witness accounts (including the author who was involved in the expedition before, during, and after).

Hiram McDaniels · Post by **Hiram McDaniels** » Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:01 am

Iduno wrote:Barry Season 1 was good. Season 2 is a bit much of the actors being bad at acting, which is just cringe-y. But Episode 5 was different.

Almost the entire episode was fight scenes, and Barry came out slightly better at the end because he made the choice to be a better person. Now there's nobody currently investigating anything he has done, because he spared Ronny's life.

Dude...dude...dude...

That feral little girl was one of the best things I've ever seen on television

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Fri Jun 07, 2019 10:37 pm

My mom called the other day, laughing her ass off, and recommended I watch Netflix's Always Be My Maybe. I liked it more than I thought I would. It was a way better American-Asian movie than Crazy Rich Asians.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Fri Jun 07, 2019 11:29 pm

So a friend invited me to see John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum this week and in preparation I watched the first two movies, John Wick and John Wick: Chapter 2. I'm not interested in spoiling any of the movies but they seem to share a lot of DNA with Underworld or Blade. If someone told me that these movies were ORIGINALLY supposed to about a clandestine society of vampires and they decided to scrub the supernatural elements, I'd totally believe them.

Of course, if one were to use them as the basis of a supernatural campaign, the body count is SO HIGH that feeding almost ceases to matter. Again, I think it FEELS right for a movie about supernatural societies, but they never address why there is so little inquiry by the authorities regarding what amounts to a significant increase in violent crime.

Per a website, John Wick personally kills 77 people in the first one, and 128 in the second. There are roughly 300 murders in New York City annually - while not every kill is limited to one city, John Wick isn't the only one killing people...

For those that have seen the first two movies, the violence was significantly more graphic in the third. Spoiler for squeamishness and violence included in the 3rd movie).

In every movie, people are stabbed with knives, including after a struggle where he is able to turn their own knife against them. The 3rd movie includes one such scene where the knife draws inexorably toward an open eye. I'm jaded on seeing people stabbed in shoulders, guts, necks, skulls, etc, but eyes, especially as it builds up to it, are rare. That was unpleasant - and the most disturbing scene of violence by a long shot (though there were several people that had their penises savaged by dogs, which might be cringe worthy, too).

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Jun 08, 2019 3:23 am

I imagine that this is a setting where the police intentionally turn a blind eye to underworld violence so long as it doesn't spill over to normal people. John Wick tearing though all of these criminal orginizations ultimately does law enforcement a favor.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Sat Jun 08, 2019 3:39 am

hyzmarca wrote:I imagine that this is a setting where the police intentionally turn a blind eye to underworld violence so long as it doesn't spill over to normal people. John Wick tearing though all of these criminal orginizations ultimately does law enforcement a favor.

I know we're not supposed to care about the goons, but I'd expect that a lot of them have wives and children; they're not celibate monks completely devoted to the art of war. And many of the bounty hunters are explicitly normal people who take on contract work. The SHEER NUMBER of them is dumbfounding. If there's a thousand people who are on the call list in NEW YORK when a contract is made available, then most of them aren't going to be 'in' so most of them can get 'out'. That's why if they were all vampires it'd make MORE SENSE - then you really are in even if you're not deep into the underworld stuff.

I like the movies - they have a Cowboy Beebop vibe that I like - something about the style, but it's a form of 'rule of cool' - whatever is VISUALLY striking is how the universe is going to work, even if it makes NO SENSE. Which is unfortunate - but if you don't analyze the society and just accept that it is far more widespread and organized than it could possibly ever be with every street thug living by 'the code', it's fine... When they were doing a 'parley' in the final movie, I felt like it was getting to be a spoof of the 'Pirate's Code' in Pirates of the Carribean. But that movie lampooned the rules itself as 'more guidelines anyway' in part because the people following them are criminals.

I think it's interesting that the mafia was impressed with their portrayal in the Godfather and tried to class up; maybe something similar will happen with Wick...

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Sat Jun 08, 2019 8:25 am

Maj wrote:My mom called the other day, laughing her ass off, and recommended I watch Netflix's Always Be My Maybe. I liked it more than I thought I would. It was a way better American-Asian movie than Crazy Rich Asians.

My girlfriend, no wait, my fiance and I just watched that and thought it was really good too! I thought if they tightened up the first half an hour with another pass through comedy punch-up they would have had a big surprise hit on their hands. The movie is funny throughout but becomes absolutely hilarious once the celebrity boyfriend gets involved. If the first half hour were as good as the last half hour that could have been another My Big Fat Greek Wedding style sleeper hit romantic comedy.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Jun 08, 2019 2:40 pm

Might wanna fix your spoiler tag, dead.

Wiseman · Post by **Wiseman** » Sat Jun 08, 2019 10:11 pm

Detective Pikachu was AMAZING! I thoroughly enjoyed myself the entire time. It's a load of fun, and there's a clear that a lot of love for the series went into it's creation.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sun Jun 09, 2019 8:03 pm

I was initially a bit put off by the live-action designs, but it's a really fun movie, and yes, the people making really did have a love for the source material.

Unlike Paramount.

I really loved it when Pikachu's chin is being scratched and he praises Arceus.

Unrelated aside: It's Donald Duck's 85th birthday today. Just so you know.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jun 09, 2019 9:23 pm

Literally my only problem with Detective Pikachu was that I wasn't fond of the Gengar design. That underbite grin thing was just weird and not in a good way.

That's literally my only problem with it.

Detective Pikachu was awesome.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Mon Jun 10, 2019 12:08 am

I haven't seen the movie (and don't plan to) because I just can't get past the hideous Pokemon designs. They literally remind me of this only not a joke.

The trend in live action movies of grafting "realistic" faces and textures over cartoon characters/creatures until they jump straight into the uncanny valley and rub their grotesquely rendered asses over it just needs to end. It's never looked good and never will unless you're trying to make them look like a goddamn creepypasta.

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Jun 10, 2019 2:17 am

I thought the creepy pokemon design was going to turn me off to it, but it somehow worked and I just got into the movie and didn't mind it at all. That said I was also super sleepy and dozed off during an action scene (only missed 2-3 min of screentime), so maybe sleepy erik is more forgiving of such things.

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Tue Jun 25, 2019 12:47 am

I watched Dirt, a movie based on a book by pretty good band Motley Crue about how they're the best band ever. It's got a lot of serious, and a decent amount of humor. And they at least admit to some of their failings as human beings, and don't hide the fact that this is their version of the story.

I guess stories with pathos and humor entertain me.

Edit: The weird decision to use the same actors to be the members of the band over a long period of time made it easier to identify them, which is good. Not sure the womanizing got quite the "hey, maybe this isn't great" that it needed, but at least the addiction thing was painted as "we did this, we liked it, it was bad."

Hicks · Post by **Hicks** » Tue Jun 25, 2019 5:42 pm

Wasnt that the one where the dude hit a woman in a tour bus and immidieatly cuts to a reaction shot of the dude? I know it isn't a documentary, but a bunch of (terrible) things that are revealed by the movie are actually sanitized to make the band look less like a bunch of misogynistic abusers.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Wed Jun 26, 2019 2:30 am

Saw MiB: International. It was good. Better than 2 and 3. Tessa Thompson and teen heart-throb Chris Hemsworth have excellent chemistry and make for an awesome dynamic.

It ain't a perfect movie, and it ain't a smart movie, but it was a fun movie, which is what counts.

That said, I was expecting a cameo from Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. There wasn't one. Sadness.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Jun 26, 2019 2:42 am

That was my take as well. I don't know whether I'd say it was better than the first, but I know it was a better match for my taste now, and taste aside completely, it was definitely better than 2 and 3. It was a lot of fun, and they even managed to not make the mandatory worms and tiny alien race exceptionally tedious.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun Jun 30, 2019 3:46 am

OK. So after my Gina Rodriguez bender last night (not a feel good movie - you LIED Netflix!), I watched Shazam today. I'm adding it the pile of superhero movies I actually like. I thought it was cute and awesome and funny, and Zachary Levi did not fail me.