What are you watching?

[killer must kill again]

knock off (1998)

van damme and rob schneider in a heroic bloodshed movie featuring green explosions and a title song by sparks! this was even wackier than double team.
glad I can finally cross it from my watchlist, totally worth it! but beware this might induce brain cancer with repeat viewings.

[Dom D]

A page back I was talking about The Rescue. Just found the Ron Howard/Virgo Mortensen film on Amazon.

It was obviously inevitable that they would make a film of this story and equally inevitable that Ron Howard would get the directors gig. To be fair he seems the right man for the job. Have to say though, I expected a lot more from the film. The docos a stunning piece of work. As tense and suspenseful as any feature. The film on the other hand is flat. The emotion from the documentary is just not there and, oddly, the drama is actually dialled back from the real thing.

100% skip it and go for the doco on Disney+.

[Ian Jane]

I wasn't watching in any sort of order but am I right in thinking that the MCU still hasn't introduced its Thanos replacement? I'm surprised. I would have thought first movie after he was offed they would have shown what's next.

It'll be Kang in the coming Avengers movies in a few years, just announced at SDCC two weeks ago.

[Matt H.]

Excellent. Thank you both! I won't feel as intimidated if I want to check one out.

[Spaghetti Monkey]

Props to Captain Marvel because it had Samuel L Jackson with a cat. I enjoyed that.

And hence, the origin of Fury's eye patch.

[Dom D]

I've barely seen any MCU movies (although I have seen the first ANT-MAN) but I'm curious about THOR: RAGNAROK. It looks fun. Is it easy to follow if you haven't been watching all of them?

I don't think any of the films require pre-knowledge. They all reference each other a lot but it's rarely integral. How you'll go with Ragnarok depends on your tolerence for Watiti. Mines worn thin. To my way of thinking Watiti only has one gag and that is that you take, say, a vampire or a pirate or a god of thunder and then you have them do the dishes in an apron while hey chat about how they haven't done their tax return yet or something similarly mundane. It was funny the first time but that was a long time ago.

[Spaghetti Monkey]

For what it's worth, the ones I've seen have been fine as stand alones.

[Matt H.]

The whole MCU feels alienating to me, like I can't just watch a random one, I have to watch all of them. I'd like to just dip my toe in whenever a particular one interests me, but I'm worried it'll be incomprehensible.

[Spaghetti Monkey]

I loved Captain Marvel and the Ant-Man flicks. No desire to watch the Thors though, so no help there.

[Matt H.]

I've barely seen any MCU movies (although I have seen the first ANT-MAN) but I'm curious about THOR: RAGNAROK. It looks fun. Is it easy to follow if you haven't been watching all of them?

[Dom D]

A shit ton of Marvel movies. Knocked off all the ones i havent seen. So this week I've been kind of been left to my own devices as the girlfriend has gone into town to do shows. I was going to be stuck in front of a tv for a bit so I figured I'd give myself a project.

Probably the most interesting thing watching a whole bunch of these back to back is how consistent the tone is from movie to movie. People talk about these being like a television show where each movie is an episode and that's fair. If your tv magically glitched and suddenly started playing random scenes meshed together from different movies the only giveaway would be that the characters and stories don't match. Visually, tonally these films are identical. It really gives you that "McDonalds but its a movie" feel. Sounds like a knock, and it is, but still its a remarkable thing to pull off.

Probably the best ones are the Ant Man films. The concept there allows for a bit of imagination and clever visuals/scenarios. The worst was probably The Eternals. It's very long and- well at some point I just lost the will to live. Props to Captain Marvel because it had Samuel L Jackson with a cat. I enjoyed that.

I wasn't watching in any sort of order but am I right in thinking that the MCU still hasn't introduced its Thanos replacement? I'm surprised. I would have thought first movie after he was offed they would have shown what's next.

[Dom D]

The Rescue: This is fantastic. There's a Virgo Mortensen film coming up about the rescue of the boys in the Thai cave but do yourself a favor and check out this doco first. The highlight here is there's a lot of footage from the actual dives and significant contributions from "Pedo Guy" and the rest of the heroes who got this done. On the news they just tell you that they anesthetized the boys and swam them out. That statement really doesn't do justice the drama of actually putting that plan into action.

This is the tensest, most gripping thriller I can remember watching and the only thing that makes it bearably is knowing in advance that all the kids survived.

[Dom D]

The Gray Man: Netflix joins the $200 million plus club for this spy shenanigans caper with Gosling, Evans and Armas directed by the Russo Brothers.

Like an Avengers movie this is all quips and explosions. I quite enjoyed the quips. The explosions get pretty tiresome after a while. People don't seem to mind that they're just watching animations with the Avengers films but does that still work when you take away the capes? Seems stupid to me.

Anyway, it's 100% plotless. a lot of ancient European cities get destroyed as Gosling tries to protect a MacGuffin flash drive from Evans. It's the most MacGuffin-ish MacGuffin ever. You never know what's on the drive and it comes to nothing. Really just a device to string together the explosions.

Eeeh, it passes the time while you wait to die.

[Darcy Parker]

Finished the miniseries The Terminal List off Prime last night. Excellent military thriller with Chris Pratt as a disgraced Navy SEAL. Watch it!

[Matt H.]

I'm hoping to watch these 5 flicks today:

After Dark, My Sweet (SuperChannel)
China Girl (1987) (Rented from YouTube)
Hexed (1993) (Rented from YouTube)
Bloody Hell (Shudder)
Body Count (1986) (There's a pretty decent upload on YouTube, so I'm finally going to check this one out).