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I initially dismissed the Thor movies and I'm glad I was wrong. My favorite MC movies have to be Iron Man, Captain America (first avenger), Captain America Winter Soldier, Thor I, Thor Ragnarok, Thor II. The Avengers team up movies are their own thing for me and the first is by far my favorite followed by the last two. Since Endgame I only watch the Spider-man movies, couldn't care less about any other marvel property at this point.
 
Onhell said:
Since Endgame I only watch the Spider-man movies, couldn't care less about any other marvel property at this point.
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I have watched the pre-Endgame films several times, went to see them in the theatre and so on. And I just can't really be bothered anymore. Endgame was a great pay-off, but I don't want to be forced to watch several TV shows to "get" films that are very obviously mediocre. I want to catch up with the new Daredevil series, because the original Netflix one was really excellent television and possibly the best comics-related work since 2012 at least, but that's about it (and Daredevil isn't considered part of the MCU as such, methinks).

Also, the biggest cancer in media today is the "marvelisation" of everything and I definitely don't want to return to the source for that. Retroactively, I don't even feel the need to return to the films I genuinely liked back then.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
I have watched the pre-Endgame films several times, went to see them in the theatre and so on. And I just can't really be bothered anymore. Endgame was a great pay-off, but I don't want to be forced to watch several TV shows to "get" films that are very obviously mediocre. I want to catch up with the new Daredevil series, because the original Netflix one was really excellent television and possibly the best comics-related work since 2012 at least, but that's about it (and Daredevil isn't considered part of the MCU as such, methinks).

Also, the biggest cancer in media today is the "marvelisation" of everything and I definitely don't want to return to the source for that. Retroactively, I don't even feel the need to return to the films I genuinely liked back then.
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My thoughts exactly. The Daredevil hallway fight lives rent free in my head
 
Watched "Adolescence" to see what the big fuss was about and because I love crime dramas. I have to say I wasn't impressed. It's a good show, but with the number of articles with clickbait headlines like "Teens are getting sucked into the manosphere! Here's what you need to know," or "After Watching Adolescence I had these 3 questions for my teen son," and blah, blah, blah.

1. If you had to watch a show to know what is going on with today's youth, you're a disconnected parent.
2. The idea that millenial parents/detectives don't know what emojis mean is laughable
3. HATED the ending:
I normally don't mind unresolved endings that leave it up to the viewers interpretation, but in this case, given the subject matter it felt like a cop out. Pleading guilty ISN'T an admission of guilt. Many people, especially those with court ordered attorneys are left with little choice and plea guilty even if innocent, because if they plea not guilty and are found guilty the consequences are much greater. Many times prosecutors will say, "If you plea guilty you'll do five years, can get out in 3 with good behavior, BUT if you plea not guilty and we find you guilty you'll do 12 years, no possibility of early release." Well fuck.... I did it your honor.
They claim to have evidence ( cctv videos of him coming and going in the vecinity of the victim, a friend confessing to it being his knife, BUT they don't have the actual murder weapon) I would have LOVED to have seen the trial.
4. Everything the boy alledgedly did is not necessarily related to the "manosphere" and mostly to do with him being an awkward, hormone fulled teen boy with not a fully developed brain. There are far more shocking true crime stories of teen killers well before the proliferation of the red pill horseshit.

This is not to say the red pill movement is problematic and is absorbing younger and younger men, but the show does a piss poor job in saying it was exclusively or in great part the fault of the red pill movement and not just overreacting to (cyber)bullying.
 
Sheriff_of_Huddersfield said:
I liked the movie “Companion” more than I expected.

It’s a different take on the recent rogue AI horror comedies. In this one, the android is the clever protagonist

Another 20+ year old chat thread. This forum has some kilometers on it.

In 2004, my fav movie was the “Dawn of the Dead” remake. “Kill Bill vol 2” was good as well.
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Most of us old farts have been on here for over 20 years. Recently you'll see several "waves," 10 or so still active members from 20+ years ago, another 10 from 10+ years ago and the rest from 5 or so years ago.

Recently re-watched HEAT in 4K, great experience. My friend and I might do another movie night tonight if there's time, tempted to watch A New Hope in 4K or The Thing in 4K.
 
Sheriff_of_Huddersfield said:
Thanks to McNab, the fire and maneuver tactics used in the movie are said to be so textbook correct that real soldiers sometimes watch the film in training to get an example of how that tactic works.
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Yes! The friend I watched it with is an ex-marine and HUGE gun... um... enthusiast and LOVES little details like that. During the big firefight with the police, when Val Kilmer hunches down to reload and comes back up to keep shooting He yelled, "Fuck yes! Fucking LOVE that!" LOL

We did get to watch Star Wars: A New Hope in 4K and it was beautiful. Unfortunately it was the Special (now ONLY) edition, but still an amazing watch. It sucks though, that now thanks to the prequels and the Disney shows the "original" films are now full of holes. Every 5 minutes or so when I character would say something we would just chime in with a "Well, ACTUALLY, in Phantom Menace, blah, blah, blah," "Well, ACTUALLY, in the Obi-Wan show, blah, blah, blah." just for giggles, but it still made us a bit sad.

Sheriff_of_Huddersfield said:
Wow, and I see you are the one who started this thread 21 or so years ago.
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Yeah, most threads that old were started by either LooseCannon, Perun, Maverik, Forostar, myself or a few other members who have since left/stopped coming back. Welcome aboard, you'll find A LOT of interesting threads.
 
Sheriff_of_Huddersfield said:
Speaking of combat tactics in movies, the British Horror film “Dog Soldiers” (2002) is refreshing for a horror film because it shows a regular British infantry squad using actual combat tactics to fight the supernatural.

I say refreshing because most horror movies depict the military as either inept, part of the evil, or both (28 Days Later, for example).

Despite its low budget, Dog Soldiers stands out for balancing the conflict with competent soldiers rather than falling back on the usual horror genre tropes.
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Dog Soldiers is a top three film for me. Simple premise but with a few twists and turns, a great cast of characters you really grow to care about, great action with some good comedic beats (Spoon casually hammering the wolf's hand as it reaches through the letterbox is brilliant), and it's directed by Neil Marshall of The Descent and some excellent Game of Thrones episodes - which also features Liam Cunningham. And it has some absolutely cracking one-liners that just never get old.
 
I watched the 1930 adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front last night. I read the book some 20 years ago, but I hadn't seen any of the films based on it.

It's been a long time since a film gave me nightmares. The truly unsettling thing about it is that it was made to a large degree by people who had been in the trenches themselves. It wasn't based on historical research or interviews, it was from personal memory.

Our bodies are earth, our thoughts are clay... this is going to echo in my head for a long time to come.
 
Sheriff_of_Huddersfield said:
Right now, I’ve just started the 1954 original Japanese version of Godzilla. I’d been reading about post WW2 maritime nuclear testing (Operation Crossroads, etc), which piqued my interest in watching the original Godzilla
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Funny, I actually just watched it last weekend. Doesn't feel like a terribly good film overall, but it's certainly a masterpiece compared to the later 1960s Toho schlock. And it certainly is an interesting dive into post-warJapanese psyche.
 
I have never watched All Quiet On The Western Front in full but I watched one of the battle scenes after hearing about the moment where a man's hands get left behind on barbed wire... yeah, if the rest of the film's like that I'm not surprised it gave you nightmares.

There's another part of that scene that got me, a seemingly endless series of back and forth shots between a machine gun firing and a pan along the trench as the soldiers get gunned down by it. It's one of those moments that borders on being so over the top that it becomes funny, like an 80s action movie, you can see Arnold wielding a machine gun and mowing down goons by the second as they simply charge towards him and into the path of his gunfire. It goes on for far too long and it seems obvious that it's such an ineffective way of fighting... then you remember that it's exactly what happened. That everyone knew they had no hope of actually getting past the machine guns and reaching the trench, but they had no choice. It's horrific.
 
That battle sequence is about the only really graphic part in the film. Don't get me wrong, it's certainly contributed to the nightmares, and I'm sure the hands on the barbed wire will stick with me forever, but it's really the entirety of the film and the way it depicts what the war does to the people in it that messes with me. I've read a lot of books on the topic, and I've been to Verdun, but being shown all this by people who were in it is a completely different thing.
 
Saw Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) at the pictures.

A well needed re-release of the best Star Wars-film. One of my best cinema experiences, and I'm glad I got to see it like this in 2025.
 
The original theatrical release of Revenge of the Sith was one of the most formative experiences of my childhood. I remember the toys, the video game, the novelization, all the stuff that flooded stores in the weeks leading up to the movie. I remember seeing the teaser trailer in front of The Incredibles. When the movie finally came out, it felt like a massive event. I also remember waiting in line at the theater as this was before assigned seating became more of a common thing. The movie was everything I wanted it to be and more, and I remember rewatching it many times when it was later released on DVD. Which makes sense in retrospect because it was clearly a movie made for 10 year olds. :p

I would actually like to go see it in theaters again although I don't think I'll be able to make it this time around. It is the best of the prequels by far, but it still has some serious problems including a continuation of the worst romance in cinema history and kind of a disappointing portrayal of Anakin's downfall in the last act (he essentially gets swindled into becoming a Sith). The movie is saved by its action scenes and set pieces, which still looked great last time I saw the movie. All the prequels visually hold up pretty well, but Episode III was still a significant step up imo. Getting rid of the convoluted plotlines and letting the visuals of the movie tell the story in a way that the first two failed allowed III to sidestep many of the pitfalls from the previous movies, but make no mistake it is still not immune to the Lucas touch.

I think the Disney movies on the whole are better, with the exception of IX, but I will say after about a decade of seeing major franchises being run into the ground by giant corporations, there's something quaint about a multimillion dollar franchise film that is one man's singular vision from start to finish. That is something that I find is missing from blockbuster movies today.

They're still not good movies though.

Masterpieces
1: Empire
2: Star Wars

Mediocre but fun
3: Return of the Jedi
4: Last Jedi
5: The Force Awakens
6: Revenge of the Sith

Trash tier
7: Rise of Skywalker
8: Phantom Menace
9: Attack of the Clones
 
Mosh said:
Masterpieces
1: Empire
2: Star Wars

Mediocre but fun
3: Return of the Jedi
4: Last Jedi
5: The Force Awakens
6: Revenge of the Sith

Trash tier
7: Rise of Skywalker
8: Phantom Menace
9: Attack of the Clones
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Where would you put Rogue One and Solo in these rankings?
 
Mosh said:
The original theatrical release of Revenge of the Sith was one of the most formative experiences of my childhood. I remember the toys, the video game, the novelization, all the stuff that flooded stores in the weeks leading up to the movie. I remember seeing the teaser trailer in front of The Incredibles. When the movie finally came out, it felt like a massive event. I also remember waiting in line at the theater as this was before assigned seating became more of a common thing. The movie was everything I wanted it to be and more, and I remember rewatching it many times when it was later released on DVD. Which makes sense in retrospect because it was clearly a movie made for 10 year olds. :p
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My formative cinematic/theatrical experience were the LOTR movies. It was the biggest thing I was ever a part of and it probably still is. After seeing the balrog on the big screen, I realised everything is possible in cinema. Like, I was kinda disappointed by every film for quite a while afterwards. :D

BTW, my favourite SW film is still Return of the Jedi, believe it or not.

I like retracing and recontextualising (both re-visiting the roots/the hometown in the beginning and recontextualising the second attack on the second Death Star, especially since it works as a background for the primary plot, which is Skywalker-centric), I like the redemption theme, I like it as the movie that brings it all to a closure. Always loved it the most, still do.
 
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JudasMyGuide said:
My formative cinematic/theatrical experience were the LOTR movies. It was the biggest thing I was ever a part of and it probably still is. After seeing the balrog on the big screen, I realised everything is possible in cinema. Like, I was kinda disappointed by every film for quite a while afterwards. :D

BTW, my favourite SW film is still Return of the Jedi, believe it or not.

I like retracing and recontextualising (both re-visiting the roots/the hometown in the beginning and recontextualising the second attack on the second Death Star, especially since it works as a background for the primary plot, which is Skywalker-centric), I like the redemption theme, I like it as the movie that brings it all to a closure. Always loved it the most, still do.
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Oh, I totally agree about the LOTR movies. They were immense — truly great, on a biblical scale. That epic tone... I saw each film in the trilogy multiple times in the cinema.
As for Star Wars, I only care about the original trilogy. The Mandalorian series was nice, though.
 
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