Movie thread

[Dexman PE PMP]

I really enjoyed Ready Player One, but that's probably because I haven't read the book.  My son loved the movie, and we had a good time geeking out over all the easter eggs.

Might pick up the book anyways.

 

[Master slacker]

Wife was the same way.  She liked the movie, but she didn't read the book either.  Of course, she's not as geeky into the 80's / arcades / Atari as I am so she's not going to pick up the book.  Of the few books I've read that have been turned into a movie, this one is by far the most egregious adaptation yet.

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

 Of the few books I've read that have been turned into a movie, this one is by far the most egregious adaptation yet.

Congo by Michael Crichton back in the 90's.

Amazing book, atrocious movie.

 

[Jbone27 PE]

We recently viewed Ready Player One.  Let me preface this review by stating that I first read the book.

Holy MF sh*t.  This movie is a steaming pile of "movie based on the book".  Aside from names of characters (at least those who are in the book), there is very little that ties the book and movie together.  There are countless story f-ups just to f it up - Parzival & Art3mis and Wade & Samantha don't meet like that, why change the first key challenge like that?, where the hell are the gates after getting each key?, who the f is I-r0k?, Daito... (read the book), and the list can go on.  The movie is just bad and Steven Spielberg should feel bad for butchering such a great book except that, you know, he got gobs of money from this thing so he won't feel bad.  I got the book for Christmas and I'm not a super fast reader, but I finished it a couple of weeks ago and I HIGHLY suggest you read the book if you already saw the movie.  Wish I could unsee the movie.  One haptic star.

The book is great.  Right up my alley being 80's, fantasy, sci-fi, arcade games, etc...  I remember playing Joust, Adventure, Pac-Man, and the like when I was younger.  The details and visuals in my head were much better than Spielberg laid out in the movie and the twists and turns not in the movie tie the whole story together so much better.  Read it if your interests are similar to mine.  4.5 haptic stars.

Agree 100%. Loved the book. Movie doesn't do it justice. The book had some really cool 80's nostalgia and the characters seemed to appreciate it. Movie they were just in it for the contest. Kinda took the fun out of it for me. 

 

[Dleg]

We watched "The Other Guys" on Prime last night. 2010 cop-buddy movie with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg.  Not sure how I missed this one when it originally came out. Pretty funny, and I often can't stand Will Ferrell. The final scene with The Rock and Samuel L Jackson was freaking hilarious.

 

[MA_PE]

We watched "The Other Guys" on Prime last night. 2010 cop-buddy movie with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg.  Not sure how I missed this one when it originally came out. Pretty funny, and I often can't stand Will Ferrell. The final scene with The Rock and Samuel L Jackson was freaking hilarious.

I thought it was pretty funny.  got ot love the car covered with coke..and the wooden gun.

 

[Master slacker]

How 'bout another book / movie combo?  This time, let's do Howl's Moving Castle.

Well, like RP1, the story didn't exactly follow the book, but I'm not quite as disappointed.  Several big parts of the story and reasons for why things happen in the book were just plain omitted and assumed to "just be" in the movie, namely the scarecrow and the popularity of the hats Sophie made in the shop.  Three of the largest WTF's from me involve The Witch of the Waste not being that bad (?), the ginormous war that shouldn't exist, and blob men.  Also, a teenage apprentice named Michael is a 10 year old named Markel or something in the movie.  The movie at least captured Howl's fire demon and the glorious slime moment.  Unfortunate that the movie couldn't follow the book more precisely, but to fit it all into an hour and a half, I guess several shortcuts had to be made.  All in all, 2.5 falling stars.

This book is great.  Plenty of imagination-stimulating scenes and dialogue.  Like most books, you get much more detail and a better story than when it's portrayed in a movie.  There is so much more going on - TWotW, Sophie's hats, her sisters, the multiple curses, Calcifer being snarky, etc...  Much, much better story.  This book is aimed at the younger crowd and therefore right up my alley as I enjoy the more easy-to-read and use-your-imagination stories.  I highly recommend.  4.5 falling stars.

 

[knight1fox3]

Congo by Michael Crichton back in the 90's.

Amazing book, atrocious movie.

"Me Amy, bad gorillas, go away!!"

:lmao:

 

[Dleg]

I have never read Howl's Moving Castle, but it's one of my favorite Miyazaki films. Whatever he omitted it seems to work for me, giving a bit of a mystery to things that are never quite answered, and his usual no-one-is-totally-bad technique of showing things from all sides, and giving every character some redeeming quality.  And the giant war leads to the most sublime moment of the film, where you get a very brief glimpse of the absolute horror of the war while Howl dives in on the fleet of airships fire-bombing a city.  

 

[Master slacker]

If I hadn't read the book, I probably would have thought the movie was pretty dang good.

One of the big mystery aspects neglected by the film is that Howl disappears for days on end and no one knows where he is or what he is doing.  That, however, is explained later in the book, which leads to some clarity.  Also, the book has a much better, devious, evil plot that has a better resolution than the entire war story in the movie.  And not everyone can be "not all bad".  TWotW certainly was a bad person through and through because (book spoiler maybe?)...

Spoiler

she was jilted earlier in her life and she, herself, had a fire demon who made her succumb to her hatred.

 

[goodal]

Watched Annihilation with the kiddos last night.  Pretty awful.  Didn't resolve anything.  Acting and CGI was fine, but the story just never took off and never filled in any of the holes.  A bit too gory for the 10 yr old too.  

 

[Road Guy]

^- I watched that as well, started out ok but just sort of fizzled out.

The teenagers / junior adults and I watched Austin Powers the other day, hadn't seen it in a while and we were all rolling on the floor!

 

[jeb6294]

Kids were off yesterday because it was too cold, no snow or ice, just too cold...candy asses...so I took the opportunity to watch "Aquaman".  Gotta agree, it was pretty bad.  I think one thing that wore on me was so much bad CGI.  It's gotten better, but it still isn't good enough to do people yet without being obvious.

 

[Dleg]

We caught up with Venom and Hunter Killer on Amazon over the weekend. Venom was better than I expected based on the reviews,  and actually was pretty entertaining. But it could have been so much better, if they had spent a little more time developing the relationship between Venom and Tom Hardy, which was the best part but just sort of thrown at you to accept without the work that should have gone into it.

Hunter Killer was a passable military action flick that my wife loved, but I was rolling my eyes through almost the whole thing, whether it was super wrong tactical details (even I could see that), terrible leadership examples, or just plain extreme hokeyness. But it was still fun.

 

[jeb6294]

Hunter Killer was a passable military action flick that my wife loved, but I was rolling my eyes through almost the whole thing, whether it was super wrong tactical details (even I could see that), terrible leadership examples, or just plain extreme hokeyness. But it was still fun.

Agreed....

Watched "Equalizer 2" it this weekend also.  Pretty much a repeat of the first one, i.e. Denzel doing his stint as an action guy, although the big finish in the first one was better since it was at the Home Depot.

 

[Road Guy]

I was not feeling super well this past weekend and ended up watching all three Hangovers.. Its a decent way to kill 7 hours....

Trying to think back to the last decent comedy they (evil Hollywood bigots) have made and I cant really think of many that were decent?

 

[Dleg]

The last one that really had me laughing was Superbad.

 

[knight1fox3]

Game Night was a pretty good movie that had me surprised a few times and laughing throughout. 

 

[Dleg]

We watched "Mud" on Amazon Prime last night. I am not sure why I never heard about this movie when it came out in 2013. What an excellent film, and great to watch with a teenager, too. If you haven't heard of it, like me, it stars Matthew McConnaughy (sp?) as a mysterious drifter type that two teenage boys find on an island in the Mississippi river. Sort of a modern Mark Twain-ish, southern tale. 

 

[Violator]

Saw the bohiemian rhapsody movie- wasn’t bad but glad I waited until dvd