The Imagineering Movie Discussion Thread

[PerGron]

#6- Boy Kills World

[Watched in theaters]

This one was a big surprise for me. I didn’t expect much out of this movie at all, but I ended up having a lot of fun with it. Bill Skarsgård doesn’t need to talk, his face is so unique that it conveys everything perfectly, and with Archer’s voice doing the narration, it made it really funny. It’s not the greatest thing ever, but it was a fun action movie that I think will be more memorable than others due to its unique identity.

#5- Monkey Man

[Watched in theaters]

I was really excited for this one when the trailer dropped. I love the John Wick films and the promise of taking one of the most unique cultures in the world and giving it that treatment was really exciting. This movie ended up being less action and more Indian culture than I expected, but that wasn’t the worst thing in my opinion. The culture stuff was great, the action was excellent, and Dev Patel’s performance and direction should be commended. I can’t wait to see what he does next.

#4- The First Omen

[Watched in theaters]

This was an absolute shock and surprise! I like The Omen well enough, but what I don’t like most of the time are horror prequels, especially ones that are almost the exact same as a movie that came out a month prior, yet The First Omen changed that for me and ended up being one of my favorite horrors of the year so far. Definitely worth checking out!

#3- Hundreds of Beavers

[Watched on VOD]

I watched The Lake Michigan Monster back when it came out and I was very high and that was a life-changing experience. This movie was even better than that! I really don’t want to say more than this is an excellent live action cartoon other than go see this now.

#2- Challengers

[Watched in theaters]

The reason I waited to post this was Challengers and I’m really glad I did. This was a phenomenal character drama and love triangle story with some of the most hateable characters I’ve ever seen. Luca Guadagnino really redeemed himself for me after Bones and All and I’m so glad I caught it,

#1 Abigail

[Watched in theaters]

While I admit this isn’t better than Challengers on an objective film making level, it was the movie I liked the most. I was so excited for this one and it absolutely didn’t disappoint. Radio Silence are great horror comedy directors and while I do think the marketing spoiling the big twist was a mistake, it absolutely didn’t ruin the movie for me. It’s maybe not the best objectively, but it was absolutely my favorite of the month.​

 

[NateD1226]

A designated place to discuss movies on here?? Count me in. My April was really re-watch heavy, as I was doing a Star Wars marathon, and I was in the mood for some Disney animated classics. According to what I logged on Letterboxd, I watched 31 movies last month, six of those being new releases (Thanks AMC A-LIst).

My favorite of the month was definitely Monkey Man, like WOW. I was so blown away by it. Not only was Dev Patel looking sexy asf, but he is truly talented both in front and behind the camera. Plus, it just feels so historic because American cinema rarely ever features Indian leads/stories in this manner, and Monkey Man overflowed with it in such a beautiful way. I also really adored Challengers. Again, the cast looked so good, and their performances are outstanding. I already have plans next week to see it again because it was just that amazing. Civil War was pretty good, but it sort of faded away from memory, which was upsetting because I thought it would stick with me. Abigail and Boy Kills World were fine, but I was excited for them and expected a bit more in the end. Lastly, there was the new Kaiju flick, and it was...meh. I try not to judge them too hard because they lean towards being just popcorn flicks. Well, the American ones do. I still need to see Godzilla: Minus One becuase the things I've heard about it are positive as hell.

I saw The Fall Guy a couple of days ago and....no thanks. Very very very mid. I would not call it terrible, but it was so unserious and kinda boring. It's funny because I watched Prime Video's Harry Styles fan-ficesque movie The Idea of You the day after, and I gave it the same score as Gosling's flick, but I actually had more fun with the rom-com lol. But yeah, this month has not started off great, but I am hoping it gets better with POTA and Furiosa. And who knows, maybe IF, The Strangers, and Garfield will surprise me.

Oh, and I'm currently watching all the Planet of the Apes movies for the first time and jeez. They range from really good to really bad LMAO. The OG was awesome, but Beneath the Planet of the Apes was from a butt. Escape and Conquest were much better, but then it goes back to being mid in Battle. I just watched Burton's POTA movie...yikes. I don't even want to get into that much because it just was so bad LOL. I am gonna start the 2010s trilogy today, and then I have plans to see Kingdom this Saturday.

 

[PerGron]

Civil War was pretty good, but it sort of faded away from memory,

You’re so right about this because I totally forgot to rank it in my monthly ranking lol. I put it between Sting and The Greatest Hits

 

[PerGron]

So I’m in between movies, I caught The Fall Guy earlier and because Apes isn’t until 7 and the theater is a ways from my place, I figured I’d throw in a second flick between them and settled on Tarot.

The Fall Guy was alright and had some fun to it but I definitely didn’t love it like I wanted to. It was a bit long and took a while to really get going. The focus on stunt people was nice and seeing some of the stunts done in the credits was awesome, but the movie was just good, not great.

As for Tarot that was s-hit from a butt. I didn’t expect it to be good, but I was hoping it would at least be fun. It was not. Also, when walking out a girl was telling her friend “see, that’s why I believe in the power of the stars” as if we just watched a documentary? Don’t trust astrology people

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

Really starting to feel the cynical slog that is the summer movie season. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is one of the few franchise movies I was really looking forward to, and in spite of the somewhat mixed reviews from the story department the one thing I keep seeing is how visually incredible it is. Well imagine my frustration when I get back from Vegas and less than a week after the movie comes out it's already completely out of my theater's two Giant Screens.

May truly feels like a big step backwards from April which is super frustrating. The Fall Guy was mid at best (sorry @AceAstro ), this week we have IF which could be good but is basically a Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends rip off, a terribly distasteful Amy Winehouse biopic, and a prequel to a horror series I have absolutely no feelings about.

Thank God for Furiosa, but even then I'm worried that it's going to hardcore struggle to get out from Fury Road's shadow no matter how solid the actual film is.

Then next month we have yet another Bad Boys movie to look forward to which I literally didn't know about at all until I saw a TV spot for it during Survivor last night.

I feel like no matter how good Inside Out 2 actually ends up being, the internet is literally sharpening its collective knives to slaughter it because of the anti-Disney discourse so that's not going to be remotely fun to actually discuss.

A Quiet Place Day One could be great, or it could be a HUGE step down from the original two. I will say though it's a change of pace I'm not a fan of the big city setting compared to the more rural atmosphere of the Krasinski movies.

July we've got Despicable Me 4, Deadpool and Wolverine, and Twisters. All three I'm incredibly meh on. Deadpool I think I've just aged out of and now find the character to be just really obnoxious and grating. Twisters has the potential to be a fun crowd pleasing popcorn movie but that's about it. Despicable Me is just more Illuminations shovelware. MaXXXine is definitely going to be the big saving grace of franchise movies this month.

Anyone else agree this has been the most underwhelming summer movie lineup we've had in a while?

 

[AceAstro]

Anyone else agree this has been the most underwhelming summer movie lineup we've had in a while?

Compared to last year, definitely. The years before that weren’t super strong either, but this year feels like it was hit hard with the strikes.

That being said, I was lucky enough to see Hit Man last night and it was really enjoyable. I think we won’t have any major motion blockbuster this summer (outside of Furiousa), but we will have a lineup of some pretty solid, enjoyable films.

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

Compared to last year, definitely. The years before that weren’t super strong either, but this year feels like it was hit hard with the strikes.

That being said, I was lucky enough to see Hit Man last night and it was really enjoyable. I think we won’t have any major motion blockbuster this summer (outside of Furiousa), but we will have a lineup of some pretty solid, enjoyable films.

For sure, Indie darlings like Hit Man and Sing Sing are definitely going to be a saving grace. With the first half of the year having such a rock solid one-two punch with Dune and Challengers, I'm genuinely worried that the rest of the year is going to struggle to live up to that.

 

[PerGron]

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is one of the few franchise movies I was really looking forward to, and in spite of the somewhat mixed reviews from the story department the one thing I keep seeing is how visually incredible it is. Well imagine my frustration when I get back from Vegas and less than a week after the movie comes out it's already completely out of my theater's two Giant Screens

That sucks, I went to see it and loved it. I’m not sure what people disliked about it, but they’re wrong, movie was great.

But yeah, compared to last summer, this one is less interesting or exciting, but still some stuff I’m looking forward to mildly

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

That sucks, I went to see it and loved it. I’m not sure what people disliked about it, but they’re wrong, movie was great.

But yeah, compared to last summer, this one is less interesting or exciting, but still some stuff I’m looking forward to mildly

The big criticism I keep hearing is that the human characters are pretty bland, which is relatively par for the course with these types of movies. I'm just super frustrated that it seems like unless I want to go way out of my way I'm not going to be able to see it on any kind of special format.

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

This seriously might be THE worst week of new summer releases in recent memory. Freaking yikes.

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

It's almost as if my theater should have still had this on a larger screen or something. No, I'm not bitter at all...

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

It turns out one of the two Giant screen/Atmos theaters at my local cinema is down due to technical issues so I guess that explains the Apes thing. When I saw Dune Part 2 on that screen I did notice a single dead pixel so I'm assuming that problem got worse and I'm glad they're taking the time to fix it.

Wound up seeing Apes in standard format and thought it was just okay. Definitely a lot better than the "just okay" that was The Fall Guy, but the pacing and certain story decisions were kind of all over the place. The obvious highlight is the actual technology at place, which is absolutely breathtaking. The motion capture work in this series continues to be THE absolute high watermark in the entire industry. I also thought Noa as a lead character was surprisingly engaging. I really like how unlike Ceaser, this character is very much not sure of himself and is kind of a blank slate in a compelling way. Proximus was one hell of a villain and I ate up every second that guy was on screen. Between this and Abigail Kevin Durant is absolutely having a moment, which is wild to see since I've always just associated him with his LOST character.

While I certainly respect the slow pace of the movie, I just don't think it sticks to landing nearly as much as the slower pace of the Matt Reeves films. There's a lot of "okay, this is pretty to look at but can we get on with the story" moments going on here. The story itself was...kind of mid if I'm being honest. I love the concept of the eagle clan, I love Proximus as a villain, and I even like Mae's role as the link to the humans, but unfortunately I just really didn't think those three components came together in a satisfying way. I was actually kind of baffled that the final conflict ended up being what it was, and didn't think the set up or the stakes were nearly set up enough to make it actually satisfying. The one nitpick I'll give from a design point of view is that I had a really hard time telling the Apes of the Eagle Clan apart from each other, ESPECIALLY Noa's two buddies who I struggled with which was which the whole damn movie. I think the Reeves movies did a far better job of designing all of them to be distinct.

I also think the movie has a MAJOR problem with the characters it decides to kill off.

Spoiler

Literally the three main character deaths are the three characters I loved the most and thought had the most potential to evolve as the new trilogy went along. Raka's death I can understand for the sake of the story in spite of him being possibly THE most compelling non-Caeser ape in the whole series. His death makes sense from a story perspective but I still would have loved to have seen him go toe to toe with Proximus and how his relationship with humans evolved through the next two films.

Proximus I'm very much going to hope for the "we didn't see a body so he didn't actually die" thing, because damn if he's done after one movie where he doesn't even show up until half way through that seriously might be THE single biggest waste of a potential trilogy spanning villain since Darth Maul hands down. Trevathon was the death that really stung though. When he was first introduced I got really excited about a potential trilogy-spanning arc for him...something in the vein of a more aloof Effie Trinkett or something. I love the concept of his character, but then they just kind of turn him into a joke and dispose of him super uncerimoniously. Total waste of a great William H. Macy performance.

I'll still check out the next movie in this series because at the very least while a lot of the plot mechanics didn't really work I could tell there was at least a lot of effort put into the world building, but it's still a significant step down from the two Matt Reeves movies. That being said, I definitely like it better than Rise, so that's at least a good sign that the series is not totally backsliding in terms of quality. In spite of being kinda lukewarm about it I'm actually a lot more excited about Wes Ball as the Zelda director after this. I actually think the really slow pace and deep emphasis on world-building and history could work for that series even more than it did here. Hopefully he just finds a better script next time.

 

[PerGron]

It turns out one of the two Giant screen/Atmos theaters at my local cinema is down due to technical issues so I guess that explains the Apes thing. When I saw Dune Part 2 on that screen I did notice a single dead pixel so I'm assuming that problem got worse and I'm glad they're taking the time to fix it.

Wound up seeing Apes in standard format and thought it was just okay. Definitely a lot better than the "just okay" that was The Fall Guy, but the pacing and certain story decisions were kind of all over the place. The obvious highlight is the actual technology at place, which is absolutely breathtaking. The motion capture work in this series continues to be THE absolute high watermark in the entire industry. I also thought Noa as a lead character was surprisingly engaging. I really like how unlike Ceaser, this character is very much not sure of himself and is kind of a blank slate in a compelling way. Proximus was one hell of a villain and I ate up every second that guy was on screen. Between this and Abigail Kevin Durant is absolutely having a moment, which is wild to see since I've always just associated him with his LOST character.

While I certainly respect the slow pace of the movie, I just don't think it sticks to landing nearly as much as the slower pace of the Matt Reeves films. There's a lot of "okay, this is pretty to look at but can we get on with the story" moments going on here. The story itself was...kind of mid if I'm being honest. I love the concept of the eagle clan, I love Proximus as a villain, and I even like Mae's role as the link to the humans, but unfortunately I just really didn't think those three components came together in a satisfying way. I was actually kind of baffled that the final conflict ended up being what it was, and didn't think the set up or the stakes were nearly set up enough to make it actually satisfying. The one nitpick I'll give from a design point of view is that I had a really hard time telling the Apes of the Eagle Clan apart from each other, ESPECIALLY Noa's two buddies who I struggled with which was which the whole damn movie. I think the Reeves movies did a far better job of designing all of them to be distinct.

I also think the movie has a MAJOR problem with the characters it decides to kill off.

Spoiler

Literally the three main character deaths are the three characters I loved the most and thought had the most potential to evolve as the new trilogy went along. Raka's death I can understand for the sake of the story in spite of him being possibly THE most compelling non-Caeser ape in the whole series. His death makes sense from a story perspective but I still would have loved to have seen him go toe to toe with Proximus and how his relationship with humans evolved through the next two films.

Proximus I'm very much going to hope for the "we didn't see a body so he didn't actually die" thing, because damn if he's done after one movie where he doesn't even show up until half way through that seriously might be THE single biggest waste of a potential trilogy spanning villain since Darth Maul hands down. Trevathon was the death that really stung though. When he was first introduced I got really excited about a potential trilogy-spanning arc for him...something in the vein of a more aloof Effie Trinkett or something. I love the concept of his character, but then they just kind of turn him into a joke and dispose of him super uncerimoniously. Total waste of a great William H. Macy performance.

I'll still check out the next movie in this series because at the very least while a lot of the plot mechanics didn't really work I could tell there was at least a lot of effort put into the world building, but it's still a significant step down from the two Matt Reeves movies. That being said, I definitely like it better than Rise, so that's at least a good sign that the series is not totally backsliding in terms of quality. In spite of being kinda lukewarm about it I'm actually a lot more excited about Wes Ball as the Zelda director after this. I actually think the really slow pace and deep emphasis on world-building and history could work for that series even more than it did here. Hopefully he just finds a better script next time.

I can get down with a lot of these critiques. That said, have you considered: monké?

Seriously though, I absolutely loved Proximus Caesar and agree with I hope we do get more of him. I have not stopped saying “what a wonderful day” since seeing the movie. I also hope we get more Raka because he absolutely stole the show for me, I could watch a whole Raka movie. I love those wise peaceful characters ala Yoda, Master Oogway, etc. in any movie I see and he fit the bill nicely.

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

I can get down with a lot of these critiques. That said, have you considered: monké?

Seriously though, I absolutely loved Proximus Caesar and agree with I hope we do get more of him. I have not stopped saying “what a wonderful day” since seeing the movie. I also hope we get more Raka because he absolutely stole the show for me, I could watch a whole Raka movie. I love those wise peaceful characters ala Yoda, Master Oogway, etc. in any movie I see and he fit the bill nicely.

Spoiler

Raka also fits the whole "we never saw the body" thing, so I absolutely hope both him and Proximus are back in the sequel. I could see him coming in to help lead the Eagle clan against Proximus trying to rebuild his kingdom.

Also, do you have any idea where the movie was actually set? That's one thing the Reeves films excelled at a lot more. I could have sworn Proximus's lair was in New York because I thought that was the Brooklyn bridge in the background, but if that's the case would they REALLY not at least tease the Statue of Liberty?

 

[spacemt354]

Is this going to be another Lighthouse black and white film I have to see?

 

[PerGron]

So not to dump on everyone, but I’ve been having a rough go of it mentally these last couple weeks, hence why I had to bow out of Citrus Dreamin’ and everything. Everything is getting better slowly, I think a lot of it was opening day at my new job was coming up and that’s super stressful. Anyway, my point is I needed a mental health day so I took today and decided to do a long movie-filled day and caught four films in the theater. I caught Furiosa, IF, The Garfield Movie, and I Saw the TV Glow.

To kick it off, I caught Furiosa in IMAX which was an amazing experience. I adore (like I think the rest of the world) Mad Max: Fury Road but upon seeing the trailer for Furiosa, it looked like a big step down both technologically and story-wise, to me at least. While I definitely think the effects in Fury Road look better, it’s more because I just like the color palate more than this one. The effects overall look great and the story is phenomenal, I might even prefer it as a movie, which is wild because Fury Road was my favorite action movie of the 2010s. Definitely go see it and definitely see it in IMAX.

Afterwards I hit IF and I didn’t expect much out of it and I got a fine cute little movie. I don’t know that it really has a target demographic, it’s too sad and existential for it to really be a great kids movie, but too silly and goofy for it to be an adult piece and not enough of a blend between them to be a great family movie. I found Steve Carell very annoying (which is pretty par for the course for me) and I didn’t love Ryan Reynolds in this role, he was too kermudgeny without a great reason. Still, the main little girl was fantastic and it was a cute and sweet enough story that I didn’t hate it.

Third I saw The Garfield Movie and opposite to IF, this one had a very clear target demographic and it was little kids. Chris Pratt was absolutely not the choice for Garfield and he just doesn’t embody the character. I was fine with him as Mario, I think he did an OKAY job there, but as Garfield he was very very bad. The movie itself though was cute, very kiddy, but cute. I probably will never watch it again, but I didn’t absolutely hate my time with it.

Finally, I saw I Saw the TV Glow and this was not the movie to see on a mental health day lol. That said, I absolutely loved it and will probably do a whole post about my thoughts sooner than later once I fully grasp how I felt. It’s a movie that focuses on identity and self-perception and is clearly very inspired by the director’s own personal life as a trans person and while I’ve seen some people say that has alienated them as they haven’t been through that, I come to say as a cis person who has never struggled with gender identity, that’s not the only way to perceive it. We all have challenges with discovering who we are and as someone who has done a lot of reflecting trying to figure out who I am and what my purpose is in life, it resonated with me a ton. I’m not gonna say it’s better than Dune Part Two because objectively it’s not even close, but it very well may take that #1 spot for my favorite of the year, I’m not sure yet.

 

[JokersWild]

I just finished watching the new Beach Boys documentary and it was absolute trash. Barely covers anything interesting or new, and ends in the mid-70s. They propped up Brian Wilson for an interview for like 2 seconds at both the beginning and end, but filled the rest of what would have been his interview with an alarming amount of unconvincing AI-generated narration. A lot of the graphics as well were AI. Half of the interview footage was taken from 20+ year old documentaries and interviews. Just a terrible job all around.

the film also for some reason closes with a tribute to Jimmy Buffet.

 

[PerGron]

the film also for some reason closes with a tribute to Jimmy Buffet.

As all films should really

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

I'm a bit more meh on Furiosa than I wanted to be, but it's still pretty rock solid and I'd give it around an 8/10. It's obviously just going to be a challenge living in the shadow of Fury Road. I'm all for the film having a way more methodical pace and larger scale to it, but MAN I really felt the CGI overload here. A lot of it came off looking like a Spy Kids movie or something, which was a huge bummer. I actually think Dementus is an even more compelling and fleshed out villain than Immortan Joe was in Fury Road and Hemsworth is far and away the strongest element of the movie, but all that simply doesn't matter when I'm genuinely not having a good time watching what's on screen a lot of the time. There's definitely some stand out action set pieces, the one right in the middle that takes up most of the "Stowaway" chapter is the big highlight, but it's hard to not look at this as a lesser movie overall.

I will say, my second screening I saw it on Regal's Screen X format and need to advise everyone to PLEASE avoid this at all costs. What a terrible, gimmicky waste of time and honestly kind of an insult to the true vision of any given filmmaker. It's a cool concept in theory, but there's just way too much of a disconnect between the screen quality and even aspect ratio/height etc. from the main screen to the side screens. The whole thing just becomes a messy blur and I genuinely kind of hated it. Also this is probably the fourth movie in a row where a group of people walked in a solid 30 minutes late and proceeded to be loud and chatty. I always thought the complaints about the movie theater experience were a bit overblown, but I'm seeing a RAPID decline in general consideration for other audience members. Most of these people who walk in late I'm honestly pretty convinced don't even have tickets and are just there for the "hang out".

I also STRONGLY think reserved seating should be limited to just the first couple weekends of a big release. It's led to waaaaay too many stressful moments and people getting bent out of shape about other people being in "their seat" when 80% of the freaking theater is empty so does it really matter? It just really bugs me from a social anxiety point of view. Every damn time someone walks into the theater after the trailers start I get super anxious that some BS confrontation about seat assignments is going to go down when it's a moot point so much of the time. There's a small indie theater a couple towns away from me that still does general admission seating, and let me tell you the sense of relaxation I feel in contrast when I sit down KNOWING that no entitled idiot is going to throw a fit about someone being in "their" seat is pretty freaking blissful. Just curious if anyone else has my point of view. I never really see this particular element of the negatives of the movie going experience brought up much, probably just because most people are married to the convenience factor of reserved seating.

Also saw "Babes" and thought it was pretty delightful. Definitely not something that's going to end up on my top 20 of the year, but I thought the jokes were well delivered and punchy all the way through and the chemistry between the two leads was really on point. The only criticism I have is that there's a SUPER forced and contrived "Third Act Breakup" that had me basically going "Oh come on, REALLY??" in my head. If the movie didn't have that it honestly might be a contender for an honorable mention, but it's still worth seeing just because of how rare a really solid comedy is these days.

 

[NateD1226]

Just finished watching In A Violent Nature, which is that horror movie told from the killer POV….and it just ed me off so badly. I’ll talk about it more in-depth tomorrow because I want to talk about May movies as a whole (for me, this month sucked), but I just needed to get something out right now because I’m so annoyed lol. I hate when a movie thinks they are reinventing a genre by being super edgy and “intellectual” when, in reality, it comes off as lackluster piece of art that makes your eyes roll every few minutes. That was In A Violent Nature for me. It does nothing with its premise, literally being a 90 minute snoozefest. It sucks because I was hyped for it as a horror fan, but alas…

I’ll go into it more tomorrow when I actually have the time to do a deeper dive into it, but, for now, I will just leave it at that.