I finished up my Lord of the Rings Extended Editions rewatch with The Return of the King yesterday. It's still one of my all time favorite movie series.
My mom and I tried to watch Elemental on Disney+ yesterday evening, but we barely 1/2 an hour into it before we both decided we weren't enjoying and turned off. After we gave up on that I decided to watch War Horse instead, which I really enjoyed. Steven Speilberg is one of my all time favorite directors, and while I wouldn't call it one of his best, it was still a great movie.
Game of Death. An intriguing movie where the star, Bruce Lee died before it was completed, which lead to a completely different film being made than what was first initially planned. Has the funniest version of a "deep fake" where they just took a picture of Bruce Lee's face and super imposed it over the double. Would be interesting what modern VFX techniques could be used to improve it. Most shots of the star are either long shots or in disguise so it wouldn't really do much.
I love the idea of Skynet itself going after them. Shame it didn't continue. reminded me of the Thanos "Fine. I'll do it myself" moment.
Finally watched Everything Everywhere All At Once last night. I really went into it just to see what all the hubbub was all about. Turned out to be one of the wildest, original, funny, endearing, fu**ed up takes on the Multiverse I have ever seen. Easy to see why there was so many awards given to it. A bit hard to follow at times, but well worth the wild, wild ride. 9/10
Also of interest was the notion that a Terminator, programmed to mimic humans to blend in, actually begins to emulate them. The T-800 ("Pops" to Sarah) wasn't just a machine carrying out programming... not at the end. While "Dark Fate" was a disappointment in many ways, it was at its most interesting when it explored this concept further, i.e. what would a Terminator do if it had completely free will?
M3gan - cheesy, but not unenjoyable. I ended up rooting for the robot. Apparently, there's going to be a M3gan 2.0, so another chance to kill all humans - well, the really annoying ones, at least.
Stagecoach starring Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, John Schneider and June Carter Cash. Dang, it's epic on the cast alone, but it's got a great script. Fun seeing Johnny Cash (a U.S Marshal) trade barbs with Kris Kristofferson (an outlaw.). You could tell this was a passion project.
I rented Alien: Covenant from Amazon and watched it this morning. I like it, it definitely was probably my least favorite of Ridley Scott's Alien movies, but I still enjoyed it. I wouldn't mind getting some kind of a follow up on that ending at some point.
That's a shame. I used to think Pixar could do no wrong, but lately it seems they've had quite a lot of misses. I think the last two Pixar movies I enjoyed were Coco and Encanto. The Finding Nemo sequel was absolutely awful.
Oh, see, I forgot about that particular detail. Which brings up another point, in that I feel that other studio of theirs is putting out better stuff as of late. They're the ones that also came out with Moana and Frozen, if I'm remembering correctly. It's those that feel more relevant, whereas, I haven't felt interested in the Pixar movies after Coco.
Yeah, the Disney Animation Studios have been better than Pixars for the last few years. Which is funny because for a long time it was the other way around, but it seems like around the time Tangled came out most of Disney's have been good to great, while Pixar's have been a bit more hit or miss since Toy Story 3.
I usually find Pixar movies too sappy for my liking. I think I’ve one seen incredibles 2 and Lightyear from them in the last 10 years or so.
Frozen was good, but I think its runaway success gave Disney some bad info, which has tainted a lot of its latest work. Most notably its recent live action remakes.
What's the general opinion on Strange World? My mom and I both enjoyed it, but I never really saw much of the wider response to it.