The last movie you saw Thread

[Túrin Turambar]

I don't think it's reasonable to criticise a film in an historical setting for not showing everyone who was there. Dunkirk is a story told from the perspective of a handful of people, it's not a documentary giving all the information. Saving Private Ryan was also criticised for featuring only American soldiers, but given it's a story about an American unit I didn't think that was reasonable, either.

There was one black French soldier in Dunkirk, incidentally. I'm not sure how historically accurate that was - I know the French used soldiers recruited in their African colonies, but I don't know if any African units were in northern France in May 1940, or if one black soldier would have been on his own as opposed to being in an African-only regiment.

[Frelga]

I watched Union Pacific, the 1939 movie that was supposed to be one of the classics that turned Western into a respectable genre. Mostly, it seemed to be an argument in favor of divorce, as the female lead marries the man she doesn't love to save the man she does love, and then they all are stuck, and the only way to fix the plot is to kill the husband.

[Inanna]

If it was an Indian movie, killing the husband would be a no-no, so the lead woman would die before marrying the man she didn't love. Serious.

Saw "Lion", a couple of weeks ago. It was incredible. Its a true story of an Indian kid of a laborer who slept off in a train and reached Calcutta hundreds of miles away - and got adopted by an Australian family. At 25 or so, he gets obsessed with finding his birth family. Nicole Kidman is the adopter (?) Mom, and Dev Patel (Slumdog fame) is the kid.

Gawd, the amount I cried.

[Frelga]

If it was an Indian movie, killing the husband would be a no-no, so the lead woman would die before marrying the man she didn't love. Serious.

They did shoot her a little. I expected her to die because the men were war buddies, and that kind of friendship is more important than a woman's life. But they contrived to keep the marriage unconsummated, so I guess it was all right for the hero to get together with the widow.

[Inanna]

Ah. Right. Not *that* different. Excuse me while I go throw up.

[yovargas]

I watched the new Blade Runner. You may recall I dislike the original so I had no real interest but I was being a good boyfriend and went for LW. I will say that I found it slightly less boring than the original. It has a real plot and real characters unlike the original, which made it more watchable for me. A little. I suspect most fans of the original will love it. And most everyone else will be very bored.

[Alatar]

I loved it.

[Sunsilver]

I am not a Blade Runner fan and have not seen the other movies. But because of Harrison Ford I was thinking of seeing this one.

Now you have me wondering if I should bother. There haven't been many movies out this year that I wanted to see. They all came out while my movie-going friend was having chemo, and too miserable to go, even if we'd gone to a matinee, where she wouldn't have been exposed to crowds.

[yovargas]

But because of Harrison Ford I was thinking of seeing this one.

Ford is only in a handful of scenes so if that was your main interest, I wouldn't recommend it.

[Sunsilver]

You know, when I bought the new TV, I also bought 3 movies I'd been wanting to see: Logan, Captain America: Civil War, and Fantastic Beasts.

I found the first two so depressing I was wishing I hadn't bought them! Fantastic Beasts was pretty good, though.

Still hoping to see Guardians of the Galaxy 2, the latest POTC movie, Megan Leavy, and A Dog's Purpose. I heard Beauty and the Beast was pretty good, too. So far, these movies have all popped up on Pay Per View on Roger's (except for Pirates, which is obviously coming very soon, as Space channel is having a POTC marathon this weekend) but I haven't been tempted, because I'd prefer to see them for free.

[Alatar]

If you dislike Bladerunner (as opposed to "not a fan") then I would save your money and time. Personally, I think its breathtakingly beautiful and simply magnificent. I'd go again tonight if I had time.

[Frelga]

Is there any point in watching it if I haven't seen the original?

[yovargas]

I would've thought no but a close friend who knew nothing about the original saw it and loved it.

[Alatar]

I think if you like cinematography, go. The movie is dripping with style. Some would say at the expense of substance, but not me.

[Frelga]

Hmm, so a toss up, in my case. Thanks!

Saw Hidden Figures on a recent flight. What an amazing movie. It's really painful to watch in places, especially when you know that the main divergence from the real story is that the white characters are a lot MORE supportive in the movie than in real life.

My only quibble is that people keep casting Taraji Henson as a mom, and she is the least convincing screen parent ever despite having a real life son.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

We went to see Loving Vincent the other night. What a gorgeous film! For those who have not heard of it, it is the world's first fully painted animated film, based on the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh. Each of the film's 65,000 frames is an oil painting on canvas, using the same technique as Van Gogh, created by a team of 115 painters. It is an amazing achievement, and I highly recommend seeing it on the big screen, if possible.

[yovargas]

This has been a good year for fans of the whole superhero movie thing. Guardians, Spiderman, Wonder Women, and Thor have all been good, successful, and well-received movies. But if I had to recommend only one of them to someone not especially into the genre, I think I'd pick Thor. Such a fun, vibrant, imaginative, creative movie!

There's a lot of things that stuck out as noteworthy but possibly the biggest for me was Cate Blanchett, because after all these zillion movies Marvel still hadn't managed to make one single memorable villain. Until now cuz Cate ROCKS as the uber-badass Hela. Finally, a villain I was excited to watch our hero try to defeat!

[Alatar]

Funnily enough it was one of my least favourite Thor movies. Not cause it wasn't a great Movie, but cause it wasn't Thor. It was Peter Parker pretending to be Thor. Actually its my least favourite superhero movie of the year so far.

[yovargas]

Not cause it wasn't a great Movie, but cause it wasn't Thor.

I think it's totally fair to say it wasn't the Thor we've known up to this point but I think that was 100% intentional. The two Thor movies are considered by many (including me) the dullest of the whole franchise and Thor as a character is the blandest of the Avengers. So they basically rebooted the whole character. Think what you will of that but he surely isn't bland anymore - good riddance, old Thor!

[Alatar]

That would be fine if Thor only existed in movies, but he doesn’t. He’s a fully fleshed out character with a weight of history behind him. This is like making a LotR movie and making Frodo into Peewee Herman.