What Movies Have You Seen Lately?

Quote: Ayecarumba

Although it was the tail end of opening weekend, the theatre was pretty empty. Not a good sign. I would give it 4 Districts out of 13.

Probably be the 6th biggest opening this year presuming only Star Wars beats it for the rest of the year. Certainly very good, but as the last three were #3,#2, and #1 it breaks the pattern of these franchises building bigger audiences over the years.

James Bond SPECTRE is down 30% from Skyfall in Northern America, but is growing bigger in China. I guess we can look forward to James falling in love with a Chinese femme fatale next time.

Still the season is doing better than expected, mostly because "Jurassic World" blew the box office apart.

Top 10 films (by tickets sold) for the last 25 years.

Titanic 1997
Avatar 2009
Jurassic Park 1993 (repeat showings)
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace 1999
The Lion King 1994 (repeat showings)
Jurassic World 2015
Forrest Gump 1994
Marvel's The Avengers 2012
The Dark Knight 2008
Shrek 2 2004

Quote: Ayecarumba

Saw the last "Hunger Games" installment.

I've seen none, nor have I read the books or even feel the slightest desire to do so.

But as to your observations, and not knowing the books, it's not uncommon in a lengthy series for an author to write herself into a corner. Getting out of there could involve extensive revision of an otherwise good story, or the use of a McGuffin. The former is too difficult, too labor-intensive, and often impossible to accomplish if one wants to meet one's deadline. The latter is like pulling an ace from your sleeve to win the hand.

Even more common is building up the build-up too much. A climax which would have stood fine with a modest build-up, can suffer and seem lame when an extensive build-up goes too far and raises expectations too much. It's also known as too much build-up, too little payoff. IMO the Rama sequels suffered greatly from this (and a McGuffin near the end as well).

One last thing. Pulling an ace from your sleeve is fine, if that was the intent all along. But you must let the reader see this, even if only in hindsight. Say your ace is that the bad guy is really an undercover good guy. That's fine, but there must be something that hints at this. a mysterious meeting, an out of character scene, something.

Quote: Nareed

I've seen none, .

They suck, they're for kids. Way too
much talking and the action is right
out of a 70's TV show. So boring that
I don't understand they're appeal at
all. I turned off the 2nd one half
way thru, talk talk talk.

Oblivion, Tom Cruise sci-fi. TC was as strong
as ever, super computer FX. The story, however,
sucked. By the end it made no sense. The very
end was a direct ripoff of Independence Day.
Did they think we wouldn't notice? The title
should have been 'Oblivious'.

John Wick, Keauna Reeves. Not bad, actually. In
a nutshell, his dead wife sends him a puppy
and Russian mafia goons break into his house,
beat him up, kill the puppy and steal his car.
That's the entire plot. The rest is him getting
revenge. You just do not kill a mans dog, as
he reminds them as he's killing them.

Very satisfying flick, got 85% on Rotten. He's
making the sequel now.

Quote: Evenbob

Oblivion, Tom Cruise sci-fi. TC was as strong
as ever, super computer FX. The story, however,
sucked. By the end it made no sense. The very
end was a direct ripoff of Independence Day.
Did they think we wouldn't notice? The title
should have been 'Oblivious'.

Not sure why you hated the story so bad, I thought the main plot twist was good. Generally, I'd give the movie a 6 out of 10. You have to like the genre.

Quote: Evenbob

John Wick

This movie does work.

A lot of movies today fail on what I will call the John Wayne element, or what the list of stock characters at wikipedia calls the "Action Hero- A film hero protagonist with unrealistic physical resistance and fighting capabilities". 'Unrealistic' says it oh so many times. Often Schwarzenegger even can't quite pull it off, but he might be the best at creating suspension of disbelief for me. Not too many others can. The premise that such people exist, yeah, that is a problem for me to start out with

What makes 'John Wick' work while so many such movies do not [in my eyes] is a bit of a mystery. Tom Cruise in 'Jack Reacher' , to use an example that I already know EB does not agree with, just flops in that suspension immediately for me, although I watched the entire thing. "Oh, sure" I started thinking right away, to a degree that is a problem. Yet Reeves in 'Wick' - I forgive similar situations and get into it.

Perhaps it is a matter of truly sympathizing with the protagonist. I'm just not sure. In any case, if I like such a movie, I really like it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stock_characters

Quote: odiousgambit

Not sure why you hated the story so bad, .

Because it was stupid. You're an invader from
another planet. The humans are your enemy.
So you clone two humans, give them no memory
and task them with drone repair. Why would you
go to all that trouble when you could just build
superior robots to do all the repair work. The
cloned humans are not needed at all. And the
'twist' is one we've seen a hundred times, where
the enemy turns out to be the good guys.

It was a flimsy story just to highlight great computer
effects. That's the consensus of most reviewers also.

I'm going to see Creed in a few hours. Stay tuned for my review.

Free HBO, Cinemax, Starz etc this weekend
on most cable and sat networks. I'm binging.

Larry Crowne. Really? Tom Hanks wrote, directed,
starred in and produces this piece of utter crap.

Is this really what super rich spoiled Hwood
superstars think happens to men in their 50's who
get fired? It's insulting.

They go to a crappy community college as
utter dorks, get made over by gorgeous
girls 30 years their junior, completely change
their style and personality in ONE semester,
and end up with the gorgeous Julia Roberts,
one of their teachers.

This movie is watchable ONLY because of Hanks,
Roberts, and Bryan Cranston. Acting is great,
it looks good, well shot and produced. They
story is pure drek.