The Imagineering Movie Discussion Thread

[PerGron]

@Architectural Guinea Pig, a friend of mine convinced me to watch it and I thought you may be curious about my thoughts. Didn’t want to type it all again Though so here’s a link

A ★★★★ review of KPop Demon Hunters (2025)

There is no world in which if you told me that I would thoroughly enjoy the movie “KPop Demon Hunters” that I’d believe you. As a matter of fact, I’d probably think you were having a stroke or something because absolutely nothing about that title even remotely seemed like something I’d even...

boxd.it

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

Well, damn. Eddington is the second movie in a row I that genuinely gave me a Krusty the Clown "what the hell was that?!?" reaction as the credits started to roll. His drop off after Midsommar and Hereditary is freaking staggering. I'm sure more people will like this than Beau is Afraid, but I just hated pretty much all of the plot developments that happened in the second half after getting excited about the first half building up a really solid slow burn pressure cooker character study thriller. I can't spoil anything, but there's a point about midway through where Aster just throws away all the character tension and it becomes a MUCH lesser movie for it. I'm genuinely upset haha.

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

@PerGron definitely curious to hear your thoughts on Eddington. Honestly between Eddington being a huge let down and Smurfs and I Know What You Did Last Summer both looking genuinely terrible, this past weekend has been one of the worst summer movie release slates I've ever seen. Man what a collection of turkeys. It's kind of funny that the genuine franchise blockbusters have been the actual good movies this month.

 

[PerGron]

@PerGron definitely curious to hear your thoughts on Eddington. Honestly between Eddington being a huge let down and Smurfs and I Know What You Did Last Summer both looking genuinely terrible, this past weekend has been one of the worst summer movie release slates I've ever seen. Man what a collection of turkeys. It's kind of funny that the genuine franchise blockbusters have been the actual good movies this month.

I’m currently in the lobby waiting to catch all three so wish me luck lol

 

[PerGron]

@PerGron definitely curious to hear your thoughts on Eddington. Honestly between Eddington being a huge let down and Smurfs and I Know What You Did Last Summer both looking genuinely terrible, this past weekend has been one of the worst summer movie release slates I've ever seen. Man what a collection of turkeys. It's kind of funny that the genuine franchise blockbusters have been the actual good movies this month.

All I can say for all three of these movies is a HUGE “whoooooosh”

Smurfs and IKWYDLS were genuinely terrible and I have absolutely ZERO CLUE how I feel about Eddington yet.

I keep editing this and will have to make a full post tomorrow but I hated watching it but I think I also loved it??

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

I thought the Avatar: Fire and Ash trailer was absolutely freaking magnificent and I'm willing to be totally alone on my little hype island with this one. Genuinely had a moment where I considered sneaking into a later Fantastic Four showing just to see it again. The creature design and world building is just getting unreal, and there's actually some fairly intriguing little plot nuggets in here as well.

 

[Half/CartoonHalf/Human]

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

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[PerGron]

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[TheOriginalTiki]

Well, July ended up being a pretty lopsided month, with yet another big disappointment from tentpole A24 release while all the actual cynical franchise blockbusters ended up being pretty good and a weekend so bad it came out with two different movies I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. A pretty shallow selection this month. Fortunately August is surprisingly stacked. Just this weekend I'm looking forward to both major releases with The Bad Guys 2 and The Naked Gun. Weapons is one of my most anticipated of the year, and Nobody 2 seems like a solid little dark horse that actually looks a lot more separated from the "John Wick rip off" vibe the first movie had.

5. Eddington

The "greased up deaf guy" of A24 art house schlock. My god has Ari Aster fallen off a cliff. I think at this point A24 has written the man too many blank checks and he really doesn't know where to reign in his crazy ideas. I really liked Eddington in the first act, but a mid-movie plot twist basically drained all the intrigue out of the story. It was "Bryan Cranston getting killed off 20 minutes into Godzilla 2014" levels of the air of excitement straight up being deflated from the movie by a single plot point. At this point I'm getting pretty sick of Joaquin Phoenix's pathetic whiny idiot characters and the rest of the stacked cast is pretty much wasted. Great production value and Aster's camera work never disappoints, but this continues the downward spiral of the man's storytelling capabilities that started with Beau is Afraid.

4. Jurassic World: Rebirth

Much like my beloved Jurassic Park 3, you're either going to buy into the B movie slop that this film is or you're going to see it as yet another cynical cash grab in an obviously aging franchise. I straight up have Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to the Jurassic movies. I never really rewatch the World movies, but at the very least I've enjoyed them all in theaters (yes, that includes Dominion). This might be the absolute best of the "World" movies...so like...a solid 7/10 haha. It's got some of the more memorable dino set pieces in the entire canon of the franchise with the T Rex river chase being a particular all timer. The cast is also a lot more engaging than the charisma vacuums that were Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, so I really can't ask for much more from the franchise in the state it's in.

3. Fantastic Four: First Steps

I had very mixed feelings about First Steps, and I wish I loved it as much as a lot of other people on here seem to. The high points are hands down some of the best stuff the MCU has ever done. I love the production design, the score is an all timer, the visual effects are genuinely impressive, and the cast by and large delivers. My problems with this movie come in the little details. It's just so obvious there was a studio mandate to keep this movie under two hours, and the awkward editing really showcases that. Whole plot points go basically nowhere, while others feel like they really needed at least another scene or two to really flesh out. It kind of reminds me of The Dark Knight Rises being a technically amazing movie with a "death by a thousand cuts" number of little plot holes weighing it down. All this being said, I still had a ton of fun with this movie and definitely think this cast being the driving force for the next Avengers has a ton of potential.

2. Together

It seems that we might be entering a bit of a horror hot streak that Together is kicking off. I loved this thing! I think it tackles a lot of the deeper co dependency themes that a movie like Companion barely scratched the surface of. This film has some absolutely stomach turning body horror while still being a campy good time with a lot of really good twisted humor thrown into the insane scenario. I love the claustrophobic, almost "bottle episode" quality to this thing. I also think the build up to the mystery of what's actually going on is handled really well, but it also reminded me of something like Talk To Me where we get a lot of cool little nuggets of lore but don't have anything explicitly spelled out. An all around sick and twisted good time and with stuff like Weapons coming out next month and Sinners being THE movie is I really think 2025 is going to be a movie year that's by and large defined by the horror genre.

1. Superman

"James Gunn has crafted a Superman movie that's everything Zack Snyder's version of the character could never be. This is a cosmic shift in the superhero genre. "I think I have one of the more definitive critic pull quotes I've ever come up with for this movie, so I'll just leave my thoughts as that. I'm seriously in love with this thing. James Gunn is the best to ever do it in the superhero genre hands down and proves that the Guardians movies aren't a fluke. This is one of the most definitive representations of the true comic essence of a superhero that's ever been put to film, right up there with Batman 89, Spider-Man 2, The Dark Knight, and The Avengers. I'm a punk rocker, yes I am!​

 

[PerGron]

I’m catching Together tonight and will be sharing my month probably Saturday, but yeah, interesting month

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

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Is it fair to say that Sorry Baby is the Sing Sing of this year as far as distribution goes? The amount of banner ads I've seen for something that hasn't even come close to playing near me is baffling.

 

[PerGron]

Is it fair to say that Sorry Baby is the Sing Sing of this year as far as distribution goes? The amount of banner ads I've seen for something that hasn't even come close to playing near me is baffling.

It’s in all of the theaters around me which is much more than I can say for sing sing

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

It’s in all of the theaters around me which is much more than I can say for sing sing

The closest I got it was San Francisco and even that was in like a two week limited run.

 

[PerGron]

Time to get July over with. Ultimately, I was surprised by how I overall really enjoyed the big budget studio stuff here and while I still think some of the more indie productions top most of the studio work, I was still ultimately a fan. That doesn't mean July was perfect, of the 16 movies I caught this month, there were some real stinkers, so let's go through it.

#16- War of the Worlds

[Watched on Prime Video]

This was just complete and utter trash. You feel the pandemic all over the production but in the worst possible way. Like, I genuinely appreciate some of the ingenuity artists had during lockdown for how to go about continuing to make art, like with the late night talk shows pivot and making movies that are guy in room with stuff on screen. However, this is genuinely an abysmal wreck that nobody, and I do mean nobody, should ever subject themselves to. Ice Cube is at his absolute worst in this movie where it genuinely feels like he's reading off the script directly off camera. Even without the name War of the Worlds, this is just an uninspired mess that you should never waste your time on.

#15- Smurfs

[Watched in theaters]

Another uninspired mess, this took all of the things that DIDN'T work about the previous attempts at Smurfs movies and decide to try to make this one work. The voice cast here is full of stars but literally nobody cares or is trying, including and especially Rihanna who was literally the entire marketing push this movie had. James Corden predictably sucks in this movie, the plot is stupid and the villain is the worst choice ever. They take Gargamel and make him the stupid goofy sidekick to his brother who is literally just Gargamel. Like why even make a new character, they're even voiced by the same dude. The one bright spot is some of the animation does look good, but year, this movie Smurfing sucks, but at least we all know Rihanna IS Smurfette.

#14- Trainwreck: Balloon Boy

[Watched on Netflix]

The Trainwreck series of documentaries that Netflix is pushing out is kind of fascinating because they're these short docs about things that really don't matter in the grand scheme of things and that should really really work for me. I mean, a doc about the freaking Balloon Boy hoax at a brisk 50 ish minutes makes sense, but somehow this series just doesn't commit to the bit. They interview just the worst people, don't really present anything except the timeline of events, and then move on. I think a series with topics like that one Carnival Cruise where people were wading in poop or a hoax where the world watched for a few hours thinking a kid was in this balloon should've worked for me but it just feels so... Netflix, and so I haven't really been checking them all out, just the ones I specifically remember happening.

#13- Bambi: The Reckoning

[Watched in theaters]

This is from the Blood and Honey guys and man I've tried to give them a fair shake but ultimately I think I'm done trying to support these movies. This series should be so ridiculous and campy that the amount of cheese rivals the pizza in A Goofy Movie, but instead they keep trying to make serious movies about Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan, and Bambi out murdering people. I think this was better than the original Blood and Honey as well as this year's Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare, but these movies are just going in a self serious direction and until they realize that nobody wants to see that and we want the cheese and camp, I'm out.

#12- I Know What You Did Last Summer

[Watched in theaters]

Wow, a bad legacy sequel to a 90s horror movie, who'd've thought. I don't care about this franchise at all the way I do something like Scream so I went into this movie thinking that maybe it'd at least be a little bit of fun watching a slasher rip through people. Unfortunately, this does the legacy sequel thing where it has to bring back the stars of the original in incredibly contrived bit parts and just shoehorn them into the story wherever they think they can. This isn't the absolute worst slasher ever or even the worst legacy sequel, but it's a movie I pretty much forgot about upon watching and likely will never think about again.

#11- Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado

[Watched on Paramount+]

I watched this one with my niece and she loved it, so there's that. I do think this is a solid enough kid's adventure movie that, while VERY cringe Nickelodeon original movie, works enough for what it is. There's some genuine moments of suspense and some fun puzzle solving and environmental puzzles that I look for in an old school adventure movie. Obviously it's not anything I'll seek out again, but I was surprised I didn't entirely hate this movie.​

 

[PerGron]

#10- Happy Gilmore 2

[Watched on Netflix]

I don't particularly like Adam Sandler to begin with, but I have always had a soft spot for some of his older movies like The Wedding Singer, The Waterboy, and of course, Happy Gilmore. Unfortunately, like most legacy sequels, in an attempt to upstage and modernize a movie that doesn't need to be upstaged or modernized, this just becomes cameo-filled slop that literally just repeats the same exact jokes and plot lines from the original film over and over again. There are literally moments in here where before or right after a joke from the first movie, they actually flash back to that joke as the same joke is being made. It's so ridiculously stupid and not in the good way. Honestly this should probably go below Dora, but too late to change it now.

#09- Heads of State

[Watched on Prime Video]

I can't believe I live in a world where this made the month's top ten, but July had some real stinkers and this was just pretty alright. John Cena is a star and I always love seeing him pop up, and having him and Idris Elba all but reprise their roles from The Suicide Squad is kind of funny. Obviously they're not the same characters, but their dynamic is near identical and while it's not original, it works enough. I didn't need a disaster movie where the POTUS and the Prime Minister go on a little adventure romp, but it's fun enough.

#08- Eddington

[Watched in theaters]

I genuinely still don't know where I'm at with this movie and so I cannot and will not elaborate. Maybe one day.

#07- Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story

[Watched on Hulu]

This was a pretty decent celebration of one of the greatest films of all time, but at the same time it's just that, a celebration. I wish we got more information about the making of the movie, the author's perspective, and most importantly the impact the movie actually had on sharks. This doc dips its toes into all three of those topics, but it doesn't really sink its teeth into the topics so while I enjoyed this as a massive Jaws fan, it wasn't something I need to ever revisit the way I do the actual movie.

#06- Oh, Hi!

[Watched in theaters]

Going into Oh, Hi! I had absolutely no idea what it was going to be and I think that was the best way to go into this thing, so for that reason I won't describe it all that much. Logan Lerman and Molly Gordon are both really fantastic here though and it's a movie I'd recommend checking out.

#05- The Fantastic Four: First Steps

[Watched in theaters]

This is probably lower than a lot of people would put it (and below my number four is probably a very hot take) but my top five are all movies I did really love. The jump from Six to Five is a pretty big one, so don't feel bad that it's down here. This is certainly the best Fantastic Four film and I ADORE the retrofuturism aesthetic, I just found the movie felt a bit rushed and a few of the subplots I wish got more fleshed out, but ultimately it was still a really fun comic book movie and the MCU is maybe hopefully back on track after this and Thunderbolts*?

#04- Jurassic World: Rebirth

[Watched in theaters]

Screw you guys, I loved this movie. It has its issues and the whole family could've been cut and made this thing so much better, but man this gave me everything I was missing in the past two Jurassic World movies and brought me back to the vibes of The Lost World which is a movie I freaking adore. I had a really good time with this movie and while I can appreciate that almost every person on earth would put it lower, I am not every person on Earth and so I put it here.

#03- Together

[Watched in theaters]

Together is really really predictable but also really really disgusting and fun. Neon is THE indie studio to follow at this point and again I just don't want to give much away about this movie because it is both great and gross body horror and a genuinely fun and funny experience to watch. It's no The Substance in terms of how it'll impact the genre or anything, but it's still just a blast of a movie and one I recommend.

#02- Sorry, Baby

[Watched in theaters]

Holy. freaking. sh*t. This was the absolute best take on a really really horrible topic I've ever seen. While SA is a very difficult and personal topic to discuss for many people, myself included, it's also an important topic for art to cover and while I've seen some great takes like I Used to Be Funny from last year, Sorry, Baby just absolutely blew it out of the water. Eva Victor tells this story in a way without becoming overwhelming but still has this amazing energy about it. This movie is hilarious, heartbreaking, and just a really fantastic piece of tough to watch media.

#01- Superman

[Watched in theaters]

I'm a punk rocker, yes I am.
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Sorry for shorter breakdowns this month, I've been busy and I'm tired, but July had some great stuff and some bad stuff like any other month. I don't think this is the worst month of the year in terms of movies, but it's not the amazing month I had hoped it would be.

With August coming up though, The Naked Gun and The Bad Guys 2 are behind us already, but I am so ridiculously hyped for Weapons this weekend. Freakier Friday of course is also something that's happening. See you next month.​

 

[Sam Magic]

Well, July ended up being a pretty lopsided month, with yet another big disappointment from tentpole A24 release while all the actual cynical franchise blockbusters ended up being pretty good and a weekend so bad it came out with two different movies I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. A pretty shallow selection this month. Fortunately August is surprisingly stacked. Just this weekend I'm looking forward to both major releases with The Bad Guys 2 and The Naked Gun. Weapons is one of my most anticipated of the year, and Nobody 2 seems like a solid little dark horse that actually looks a lot more separated from the "John Wick rip off" vibe the first movie had.

5. Eddington

The "greased up deaf guy" of A24 art house schlock. My god has Ari Aster fallen off a cliff. I think at this point A24 has written the man too many blank checks and he really doesn't know where to reign in his crazy ideas. I really liked Eddington in the first act, but a mid-movie plot twist basically drained all the intrigue out of the story. It was "Bryan Cranston getting killed off 20 minutes into Godzilla 2014" levels of the air of excitement straight up being deflated from the movie by a single plot point. At this point I'm getting pretty sick of Joaquin Phoenix's pathetic whiny idiot characters and the rest of the stacked cast is pretty much wasted. Great production value and Aster's camera work never disappoints, but this continues the downward spiral of the man's storytelling capabilities that started with Beau is Afraid.

4. Jurassic World: Rebirth

Much like my beloved Jurassic Park 3, you're either going to buy into the B movie slop that this film is or you're going to see it as yet another cynical cash grab in an obviously aging franchise. I straight up have Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to the Jurassic movies. I never really rewatch the World movies, but at the very least I've enjoyed them all in theaters (yes, that includes Dominion). This might be the absolute best of the "World" movies...so like...a solid 7/10 haha. It's got some of the more memorable dino set pieces in the entire canon of the franchise with the T Rex river chase being a particular all timer. The cast is also a lot more engaging than the charisma vacuums that were Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, so I really can't ask for much more from the franchise in the state it's in.

3. Fantastic Four: First Steps

I had very mixed feelings about First Steps, and I wish I loved it as much as a lot of other people on here seem to. The high points are hands down some of the best stuff the MCU has ever done. I love the production design, the score is an all timer, the visual effects are genuinely impressive, and the cast by and large delivers. My problems with this movie come in the little details. It's just so obvious there was a studio mandate to keep this movie under two hours, and the awkward editing really showcases that. Whole plot points go basically nowhere, while others feel like they really needed at least another scene or two to really flesh out. It kind of reminds me of The Dark Knight Rises being a technically amazing movie with a "death by a thousand cuts" number of little plot holes weighing it down. All this being said, I still had a ton of fun with this movie and definitely think this cast being the driving force for the next Avengers has a ton of potential.

2. Together

It seems that we might be entering a bit of a horror hot streak that Together is kicking off. I loved this thing! I think it tackles a lot of the deeper co dependency themes that a movie like Companion barely scratched the surface of. This film has some absolutely stomach turning body horror while still being a campy good time with a lot of really good twisted humor thrown into the insane scenario. I love the claustrophobic, almost "bottle episode" quality to this thing. I also think the build up to the mystery of what's actually going on is handled really well, but it also reminded me of something like Talk To Me where we get a lot of cool little nuggets of lore but don't have anything explicitly spelled out. An all around sick and twisted good time and with stuff like Weapons coming out next month and Sinners being THE movie is I really think 2025 is going to be a movie year that's by and large defined by the horror genre.

1. Superman

"James Gunn has crafted a Superman movie that's everything Zack Snyder's version of the character could never be. This is a cosmic shift in the superhero genre. "I think I have one of the more definitive critic pull quotes I've ever come up with for this movie, so I'll just leave my thoughts as that. I'm seriously in love with this thing. James Gunn is the best to ever do it in the superhero genre hands down and proves that the Guardians movies aren't a fluke. This is one of the most definitive representations of the true comic essence of a superhero that's ever been put to film, right up there with Batman 89, Spider-Man 2, The Dark Knight, and The Avengers. I'm a punk rocker, yes I am!​

Love this review.

Superman had me wishing Disney owned DC and had hired Gunn to run it. It was so bright, optimistic, and positive.

 

[PerGron]

... So, Weapons...

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

... So, Weapons...

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

This might be a hot take but for me Together > Weapons