What movies have you been watching?

[deek]

A couple of my favorite movies from the year are Little Women and 1917. Really enjoyed them. LW is probably one of the best G rated movies I've ever seen. Watched Rambo: Last Blood for the first time last night. Typical Rambo - most would probably say it wasn't a great movie, but my god it was bad ass.

[sui generis]

We watched Booksmart this weekend.  I'm really torn...so much of it was funny and pretty fresh, especially for the first half or more.  But then the crescendo conflict and beyond seemed too predictable. But then maybe my feelings are too harsh because I was having flashbacks to my own high school experience (which was actually in no way similar to the movie, but still horrible in so many ways)?  I did laugh out loud several times, so there is that.

[Noodle]

Watched the Downton Abbey movie. It was very pretty to look at but really the only reason it had to exist was so that people could spend a couple more hours with the characters--the plot was sketched-in at best. It turned out I had forgotten at least 50% of the plot of the last season of the television series which made the first twenty minutes or so pretty confusing. As a "Crown" enthusiast, it was interesting to see a younger version of Queen Mary and to hear all the commentary about "Bertie" who of course ended up as the Duke of Windsor.

[MasterStache]

Watched 1917 and Midway recently. Absolutely loved both of them. Always been a sucker for war movies. 

[OtherJen]

I saw the movie Parasite, a Korean film in the movie theater.. It is about a poor family who use their wits to ingratiate themselves into the lives of a rich couple. It is comedy but it turns very dark. There’s social commentary about Rich versus poor. Very entertaining.

I heard really good things about Parasite from all my Italian friends.

I liked Parasite.  Good film.

It's available for rental on Amazon. We rented it tonight and thought it was very good.

And so did the Academy, as Parasite became the first-ever non-English language film to win Best Picture: https://nypost.com/2020/02/09/oscars-2020-parasite-wins-best-picture-crowd-chants-for-speech-encore/

[wenchsenior]

I saw the movie Parasite, a Korean film in the movie theater.. It is about a poor family who use their wits to ingratiate themselves into the lives of a rich couple. It is comedy but it turns very dark. There’s social commentary about Rich versus poor. Very entertaining.

I heard really good things about Parasite from all my Italian friends.

I liked Parasite.  Good film.

It's available for rental on Amazon. We rented it tonight and thought it was very good.

And so did the Academy, as Parasite became the first-ever non-English language film to win Best Picture: https://nypost.com/2020/02/09/oscars-2020-parasite-wins-best-picture-crowd-chants-for-speech-encore/

That was a pleasant surprise when I woke up this morning!  1917 was dominating the awards in the run-up, and seemed right up the old, white, stodgy Academy voters' alley.  But the Academy membership is slowly changing, and they do ranked-choice voting for best picture, so maybe we'll see more interesting winners bubbling up more often as time goes on. I suspect we're in for bit of a transition period of whiplashing back and forth from 'traditional' to 'nontraditional' winners.

[jim555]

Rambo Last Blood - Didn't like this one at all.  Every Rambo gets worse than the last one.  A lot wrong with this movie.

Terminator Dark Fate - Like a re-heated Terminator with old original cast and younger ones thrown in.  Nothing original here.

Joker - Managed to finish it, not a fan.

[GuitarStv]

Joker - Managed to finish it, not a fan.

I saw this and thought it was a pretty good movie . . . well acted, well shot, well written plot.  That said it's not the kind of movie I want to watch again.

[OtherJen]

Joker - Managed to finish it, not a fan.

I saw this and thought it was a pretty good movie . . . well acted, well shot, well written plot.  That said it's not the kind of movie I want to watch again.

Pretty much my take on it. I am not surprised at all that Joaquin Phoenix won the Best Actor Oscar after that one, but I don't have an inclination to rewatch it.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

Joker - Managed to finish it, not a fan.

I saw this and thought it was a pretty good movie . . . well acted, well shot, well written plot.  That said it's not the kind of movie I want to watch again.

Pretty much my take on it. I am not surprised at all that Joaquin Phoenix won the Best Actor Oscar after that one, but I don't have an inclination to rewatch it.

I just watched this last night. It managed to keep my wife up until almost midnight, which has never happened in a film before. It was brutal, but it's hard to say it's not compelling, maybe more so for us because we have some family with mental illness. I will definitely not watch it again.

[ketchup]

We watched three very different movies this weekend.

Friday was Knives Out (2019).  Holy crap, this was fantastic.  1000% recommended.  Solid cast, and lots of delightful twists and turns in the story.
Saturday was Hereditary (2018).  This genre isn't usually my thing but it really nailed the atmosphere.
Last night was The Handmiaden (2016).  Definitely earns the "erotic thriller" label, but really damn good too.  Would recommend if that aspect doesn't turn you off.

[sui generis]

We watched They Shall Not Grow Old last night. Good documents about WWI using strictly interviews of vets and archival footage, much of which was colorized to interesting effect. Learning about life in the trenches was about what you'd expect, nothing too surprising, but the cinematographic technique was worth a look.

[TVRodriguez]

We took the kids to see Jojo Rabbit yesterday, and I loved it. It's a WWII movie set in Germany, where the main character is a ten year old boy who is excited to join the Nazi youth and whose imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler, and whose mother is hiding a young Jewish woman in the wall of his dead sister's room.  It's a comedy. Extremely well done. Our kids are 8, 10, & 12, and all of us thought it was good. The rare family movie that is funny, serious, thought provoking, and entertaining. Highly recommend this for adults and kids alike.

[OtherJen]

We have Disney Plus for a month (husband and friend wanted to watch the Mandalorian), so I'm catching up on some old favorites. "Ratatouille" is still excellent, and it was fun to watch "Mary Poppins" for the first time in at least 2 decades.

[sui generis]

We watched Roma, the autobiographical film by Alfonso Cuaron.  It was beautiful and artistic and the main actor was fantastic, very subtle and totally authentic (well, they did just find her in a country village, apparently).  But god if that wasn't one of the more depressing movies I've seen in a while. 

Spoiler: show

Between all the men being shitty and abandoning their families (and one of them threatening violence) and the death of the baby, I was about to walk out if one or more of the children did die at the beach, which would have just been too much!  Even my husband was like, wow, men are terrible, we should get rid of them.

  This film was quite the rage in 2018, but it feels like it fell off people's radars pretty fast.

[Prairie Gal]

Watched the Downton Abbey movie. It was very pretty to look at but really the only reason it had to exist was so that people could spend a couple more hours with the characters--the plot was sketched-in at best. It turned out I had forgotten at least 50% of the plot of the last season of the television series which made the first twenty minutes or so pretty confusing. As a "Crown" enthusiast, it was interesting to see a younger version of Queen Mary and to hear all the commentary about "Bertie" who of course ended up as the Duke of Windsor.

I agree. I watched it with my two sisters, one is a big DA fan, and had to keep reminding me of things that had happened in the last season that I had forgotten. The other had never seen DA, and she was totally underwhelmed by the movie. We had to keep giving her back story for it to make any sense. I think a movie should be able to stand on it's own.

[Kris]

Watched the Downton Abbey movie. It was very pretty to look at but really the only reason it had to exist was so that people could spend a couple more hours with the characters--the plot was sketched-in at best. It turned out I had forgotten at least 50% of the plot of the last season of the television series which made the first twenty minutes or so pretty confusing. As a "Crown" enthusiast, it was interesting to see a younger version of Queen Mary and to hear all the commentary about "Bertie" who of course ended up as the Duke of Windsor.

I agree. I watched it with my two sisters, one is a big DA fan, and had to keep reminding me of things that had happened in the last season that I had forgotten. The other had never seen DA, and she was totally underwhelmed by the movie. We had to keep giving her back story for it to make any sense. I think a movie should be able to stand on it's own.

Yeah, I loved it, but it was really just a bit of fluff for the series addicts.

[Prairie Gal]

Watched Marriage Story on Netflix. Didn't love it. Too dark and angsty, and while the ending was less so, it wasn't the feel good ending I would have liked. It was a pretty interesting commentary on how the lawyers and the legal system blew up their divorce, and all of their lives into something way worse than it had to be.

[Kris]

Watched Marriage Story on Netflix. Didn't love it. Too dark and angsty, and while the ending was less so, it wasn't the feel good ending I would have liked. It was a pretty interesting commentary on how the lawyers and the legal system blew up their divorce, and all of their lives into something way worse than it had to be.

I actually had to turn it off about halfway through because of how awful that was.

And how realistic, I think. So, points for the movie, but it was unbearable to me.

[Tyson]

Watched Marriage Story on Netflix. Didn't love it. Too dark and angsty, and while the ending was less so, it wasn't the feel good ending I would have liked. It was a pretty interesting commentary on how the lawyers and the legal system blew up their divorce, and all of their lives into something way worse than it had to be.

I actually had to turn it off about halfway through because of how awful that was.

And how realistic, I think. So, points for the movie, but it was unbearable to me.

I went through a divorce a little over a year ago and the movie is very accurate, even when lawyers aren't involved.  For me, watching the movie was really painful, but in some ways, cathartic.

[Kris]

Watched Marriage Story on Netflix. Didn't love it. Too dark and angsty, and while the ending was less so, it wasn't the feel good ending I would have liked. It was a pretty interesting commentary on how the lawyers and the legal system blew up their divorce, and all of their lives into something way worse than it had to be.

I actually had to turn it off about halfway through because of how awful that was.

And how realistic, I think. So, points for the movie, but it was unbearable to me.

I went through a divorce a little over a year ago and the movie is very accurate, even when lawyers aren't involved.  For me, watching the movie was really painful, but in some ways, cathartic.

Yeah, I bet.

My husband and I were both married previously. He has kids, I don't.

When we first got together, he and his ex-wife were already divorced, but a lot of the movie brought up really ugly memories of her trying to make him feel like a terrible person, using threats of taking custody away from him, and alienation of affection of the kids...

It was extremely painful and awful to revisit those times.

[jim555]

Official Secrets - A British Intelligence translator leaks a sensitive memo and runs afoul of the Official Secrets act.  I found this movie to be interesting.

[TVRodriguez]

Friday was Knives Out (2019).  Holy crap, this was fantastic.  1000% recommended.  Solid cast, and lots of delightful twists and turns in the story.

DH & I watched Knives Out last weekend.  I very much enjoyed it, but DH did not.  He thought it would be more of a comedy.  I thought it was funny enough without being a "comedy."  And I really enjoyed Chris Evans (is that his name?  Captain America?) in this movie.

[Noodle]

With Jennifer Lopez in the news so much recently for her role in Hustlers, I went back and watched "Out of Sight" with a very young J. Lo and George Clooney. Still holds up, and I recommend it. One of my favorite Elmore Leonard adaptations outside of Justified.

[OtherJen]

We rewatched Captain Marvel last night. Still lots of fun.

[sui generis]

We enjoyed The Farewell.  My husband was disappointed when he realized what we were watching because we had listened to the story that spawned the movie on This American Life last summer.  But I knew it would be fun to watch it cinematized (if that's a word) even if we did know the whole story, based on actual events (or "based on an actual lie" as the movie tells you at the outset).  And indeed, it was fun to watch! A funny, sweet movie that is light and totally easy to watch.  And I really like Awkwafina.

[Moonwaves]

Thanks to a lot of pain following a long dentist appointment on Monday, yesterday I stayed home from work and in between moaning and wailing, I managed to watch not one but two films.
First up was The Bookshop, with Emily Mortimer and Bill Nighy. I think I have seen it before but couldn't really remember it or else only saw the start. I like it but suspect the book it's basde on might be even better.

And then came Malcolm X. Haven't seen that for a long time and had also managed to forget large chunks of it. It's really very well done. And now I have a bunch of other Denzel Washington films lined up on Netflix.

[Noodle]

Frozen II is now on Disney so I gave it a watch. I thought it was a perfectly nice animated movie. Did not like the music as much as the first one, but always happy to see Kristen Bell working.

[rocketpj]

We watched Parasite on Friday, which I really liked.  Funny, dark AF, and some great commentary on the world.  I'm not at all surprised it won the Oscar.

Last week I watched Spenser Confidential.  Meh.  Pretty much the standard action movie, which I am extremely tired of watching by now.

[OtherJen]

We watched “12 Monkeys” on Friday and “Contagion” last night. We’re taking a break from infection apocalypse films tonight, but maybe it’s time to re-watch “Shaun of the Dead” sometime this week.

[sui generis]

We watched Precious last night.  Been meaning to watch it for many years.  I was worried because I had heard it was depressing/hard to watch and all the news is so depressing already....but at least depressing in a different way?  Welp, it was hard to watch, but it was very good, very well-done.  Glad I finally saw it.

[slackmax]

Went to see 'The Hunt' at the big screen a few days ago. I'm not going to mention the plot. One can search for it online.

I thought the movie was OK.  Not a complete waste of money. It was in the genre of 'Hunger Games'.   

The plot was easy to follow and made sense. No unexplained things happening. Which I liked about it.

Way too much over-the-top violence, though.   Very gory.

Acting was pretty good.     

I guess one could describe it as a dark political comic satire.   

[Warlord1986]

Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker.

It was fun, but I thought the plotting was a bit rushed. They crammed a lot into that movie. I do not ship Ben/Rey, but I do approve of Rey/Finn/Poe. They are the one true threesome.

[Noodle]

We watched Parasite on Friday, which I really liked.  Funny, dark AF, and some great commentary on the world.  I'm not at all surprised it won the Oscar.

Last week I watched Spenser Confidential.  Meh.  Pretty much the standard action movie, which I am extremely tired of watching by now.

I have very fond memories of the Spenser book and television series, although I'm sure neither have aged well--thus I was really excited when the Spenser movie showed up on Netflix. Never mind.

[yakamashii]

Outbreak

Prepare yourselves!

[Dicey]

Outbreak

Prepare yourselves!

Ha! My 89-year-old Aunt just watched it and recommended it to me today. Her daughter lives near the area it was filmed. No thanks, It scared the shit out of me the first time around.

I just watched the Betty White documentary on Netflix and thoroughly enjoyed it.

[chaskavitch]

We watched “12 Monkeys” on Friday and “Contagion” last night. We’re taking a break from infection apocalypse films tonight, but maybe it’s time to re-watch “Shaun of the Dead” sometime this week.

As a microbiologist, I've gotta say, Contagion is great.  We watched it again a few weeks ago in (joking) preparation for all the crazy times.  I've been telling people how accurate most of the science is since it came out, but I'm definitely sorry that we're heading in that direction now :(

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

We watched three very different movies this weekend.

Friday was Knives Out (2019).  Holy crap, this was fantastic.  1000% recommended.  Solid cast, and lots of delightful twists and turns in the story.
Saturday was Hereditary (2018).  This genre isn't usually my thing but it really nailed the atmosphere.
Last night was The Handmiaden (2016).  Definitely earns the "erotic thriller" label, but really damn good too.  Would recommend if that aspect doesn't turn you off.

Just wanted to throw out a second for Knives Out. I don't watch a ton of movies, but it was my favorite overachieving movie for me that I've seen in probably 5-10 years. I didn't know what to expect/wasn't expecting a whole lot, but I was thoroughly entertained. As was mentioned, don't expect a full comedy, but it is very funny at times. The cast was great, and excellent twists/plot.

[EscapeVelocity2020]

28 Weeks Later (the sequel to 28 Days Later) - hey, at least Corona isn't the Rage virus!  Things could be worse

[Noodle]

Decided that this would be a great time to rewatch the Indiana Jones trilogy (pretending the fourth one doesn't exist). Raiders of the Lost Ark still holds up as an adventure movie, although it feels a bit dated in terms of the way women and people of color are treated.

Watched Charlie's Angels which I liked a lot, despite the fact that it didn't get great reviews. I thought it was a fun action with a nice girl-power undercurrent which I think my nieces will like.

Also watched Ad Astra, which was surprisingly well reviewed in spite of being the world's most boring space movie. There is this weird trend right now of slow, meditative movies set in space which is fine, but I think the intersection of the Venn diagram of "people who like space movies" and "people who like slow, meditative movies" is smaller than film-makers think. The movie is gorgeous to look at but the plot mostly consists of "something dangerous happens to astronaut Brad Pitt" and "astronaut Brad Pitt does not react in any visible way." Somehow, a movie in which Brad Pitt fights off moon pirates still managed not to hold my attention.

[EscapeVelocity2020]

@Noodle It should be our life’s goal to stop anyone else from ever wasting their life watching Ad Astra!

[Warlord1986]

Rashomon.

Akira Kurosawa knew his business. The characters and cinematography were interesting. It also gets points for asking a few poignant questions about human nature without getting preachy or slowing down too much. Good movie.

[mm1970]

We started watching the Marvel movies in order of when they take place.  Just finished Iron  Man 2, the 4th one.

[OtherJen]

We watched three very different movies this weekend.

Friday was Knives Out (2019).  Holy crap, this was fantastic.  1000% recommended.  Solid cast, and lots of delightful twists and turns in the story.
Saturday was Hereditary (2018).  This genre isn't usually my thing but it really nailed the atmosphere.
Last night was The Handmiaden (2016).  Definitely earns the "erotic thriller" label, but really damn good too.  Would recommend if that aspect doesn't turn you off.

Just wanted to throw out a second for Knives Out. I don't watch a ton of movies, but it was my favorite overachieving movie for me that I've seen in probably 5-10 years. I didn't know what to expect/wasn't expecting a whole lot, but I was thoroughly entertained. As was mentioned, don't expect a full comedy, but it is very funny at times. The cast was great, and excellent twists/plot.

Yes. This was our movie choice tonight, and it is a lot of fun. The cast is great and the plot is solid.

[Noodle]

Watched "Harriet" this evening--the Harriet Tubman biopic. It was a pretty traditional biographical movie--nothing too experimental--but very well made and well-acted.

[Dicey]

I've watched Saving Mr. Banks, Yesterday, and The Hundred Step Journey lately and enjoyed them all.

[Noodle]

Watched "Onward," the new Disney animated movie which they just put on Disney+. It was a bit slight but still very warm and charming. I really enjoy Chris Pratt in his goofier roles and his voice part in this definitely fell into that category.

Also watched the Shaun the Sheep movie from a few years back. It was absolutely delightful--there was plenty of the signature Aardman humor (they also do Wallace and Gromit). With the world in its current state, sometimes you just need to watch sheep singing in a barbershop quartet.

[wenchsenior]

Watched "Onward," the new Disney animated movie which they just put on Disney+. It was a bit slight but still very warm and charming. I really enjoy Chris Pratt in his goofier roles and his voice part in this definitely fell into that category.

Also watched the Shaun the Sheep movie from a few years back. It was absolutely delightful--there was plenty of the signature Aardman humor (they also do Wallace and Gromit). With the world in its current state, sometimes you just need to watch sheep singing in a barbershop quartet.

Apparently there is a Shawn the Sheep sequel out...not sure if available on streaming yet (or dvd, if you are an old like me).

[Dicey]

Just watched "Unstoppable" about Bethany Hamilton on Netflix and really enjoyed it. Her parents started shooting home movies when she was very young, so there is a ton of actual footage. No actors, no hokey re-creations. I was making bias tape (for masks, which involves a lot of ironing) when I watched it. If I had known it was going to be so interesting, I would have given it my full attention. Therefore, I will probably watch it again very soon, it was that good.

[Noodle]

Little Women is now available to rent on streaming. Highly recommended! While the movie is not perfect, the acting is top-notch and it was a fresh way of looking at a very well-known text. It really should have gotten more recognition at awards season.