What Movie Did You Just Watch

[Foggle]

Somehow the only Best Picture nominee I actually saw was Bohemian Rhapsody, and it absolutely did not deserve the nomination. It's an awful film, straight up. I will definitely get around to the rest before too long, though I can't say I'm particularly interested in Green Book. Those two could have easily been replaced by Blindspotting, First Reformed, Hereditary, Annihilation, or any of the other great films that were ignored by the Academy this year. Heck, Spider-Verse should have been nominated for Best Picture instead, though I know they would recoil at the mere thought of putting an animated film up for that award.

Also still need to see The Favourite. I will say that The Lobster is a film that I appreciate on a technical level more than I like.

Yorgos has improved a lot from what I can tell. The only film I've seen by him is Dogtooth, which I didn't really like at all. Emmy has seen all three of his latest, felt the same way about The Lobster that you did, but loved The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Favourite.

[Avaitor]

Dogtooth does not sound like an easy to love film, but I'm still curious about it. You haven't seen Black Panther, Foggle?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'll keep that in mind. I do still plan to see The Favourite.

Also, the Academy actually has nominated animated features for Best Picture before (both "Beauty and the Beast" and "Up" earned that distinction), but yeah, they generally don't care about animation as a serious art-form. Glad that Spider-Verse won for Best Animated Feature all the same, though. Avaitor, you should really let go of your Lord and Miller bias and give this one a shot. It's by far one of the best superhero movies that I've ever seen.

[Avaitor]

I did, and still didn't love it. The animation and humor just didn't click with me. That said, I did appreciate the obvious labor of love, and I'm glad that it won since it's so damn different. I still enjoyed Incredibles and Ralph, but they don't offer anything new, and I still think Wes Anderson could do better than Isle of Dogs, and although I still haven't seen Mirai, it feels like more of a deserving win

[Dr. Insomniac]

I'm not sure with people looking at Into the Spider-Verse as a return to form for Sony, as it felt like the movie succeeded in spite of Sony than because of them. And the only reason it could be so stylized and different was because Sony wasn't paying attention, and if they did, it would have been more focus-tested like Venom was. As for the rest, Incredibles was okay. I liked it more than other people did, but it definitely wasn't as good as the first. Isle of Dogs had some decent moments, but wasn't swooned by it. And the toddler character in Mirai was too annoying for me. Even if he was meant to be a brat in the first part of the movie, Hosoda succeeds too hard at this. I was also disappointed the film didn't focus on Future Mirai as much as the trailer implied.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Avaitor: Eh, I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree on that one. Personally I've never really been much of a fan of Auteur theory to begin with, anyways, which is why I tend to judge each movie more on individual merit rather than who's behind making it; not implying that you are, just that a lot of people always mention Lord and Miller's involvement in the film as if that's an inherent mark of quality when there are three directors and another writer who worked on it to make it what it was.

I think what personally makes Spider-Verse one of the better superhero movies that I've seen IS it's stylistic choice of animation and how it utilizes it to embrace the absurdity of comic books in a way that a live action movie simply can't. Personally I really wish we could see more high-profile superhero or comic book movies in this style than something more generic like Big Hero 6 (which isn't bad, but is also completely unmemorable). I personally love that we are getting stuff that isn't afraid to go weird to reflect the material that it's adapting rather than trying to always tone down the more comic book-ey elements in order to appease some sort of sense that comic book movies being more realistic somehow makes them or their messages more mature. For that purpose, while I really dug Black Panther and would be happy to jump back into more of Wakanda, I think that Spider-Verse (and also Infinity War for somewhat different reasons) really stole the year for me in this particular genre of film. That's just my take, though, with all-due respect to your opinion, of course.

But no, you are still objectively wrong about Isle of Dogs. I'll go on record stating that it's my favorite movie of last year (out of what I've seen so far) and I'd argue one of Wes Anderson's best.

Mirai was another good example of a movie that was more brilliant in it's craft than as an overall product. I still quite enjoyed it, myself, but it doesn't hold a candle to Hosoda's holy trinity of modern classics, so to speak.

[Foggle]

Dogtooth does not sound like an easy to love film, but I'm still curious about it. You haven't seen Black Panther, Foggle?

Dogtooth is kind of interesting, and admittedly I could have paid more attention to it, but it felt like bog-standard dogme to me. Honestly, I haven't seen Black Panther yet, or Infinity War, or Ant Man & The Wasp, or Venom, or Aquaman! Which isn't due to lack of interest, it's more that I hate going to movies on my own, so I usually only see films in the theater when Emmy is visiting (sometimes we go every single day, maybe even multiple times) or on the very rare chance I can convince my other friends to accompany me. I really went out of my way with Deadpool 2 just because I love the character. Speaking of which, the director's cut on the blu-ray elevates that film a ton for me; the fights are longer, the CGI is better, the alternate joke takes are funnier (for the most part). I'm sure I'll get around to the rest of 2018's superhero films before too long and then kick myself for missing out on them in the cinema like usual.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Watched Us last night.

It's more of a horror comedy in parts and a thriller in others as opposed to a straight-up horror movie as the trailers made it out to be. If you are one if those people who can't stand multiple leaps in logic for a movie, then this might not be for you. That said, fir me this was personally right up my alley. There was a sense of creepy foreboding and tension when there needed to be, even if I was never really scared, and the humorous bits were for the most part genuinely funny. Also Lupita Nyong'o was fantastic in this movie, essentially playing two roles and effectively convincing me that her double was someone else entirely.

In comparing it to Get Out, the former is the better overall film, but Us falls into a certain genre niche that I personally prefer.

[Avaitor]

Personally, I preferred this to Get Out. I thought it was an improvement in just about every way, including balancing humor, even if I think Get Out is funnier. The build-up is especially fantastic, and it really feels like every little moment mattered, which I love in movies like this.

An easy contender for favorite of the year so far.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Also, as others have pointed out, perhaps not coincidentally, the premise of this movie feels like something out of the Twilight Zone, and I'm definitely eager to check out Peele's take on the classic anthology series when his version drops next month.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I only got two cards with my booster-pack and neither of them are true holographic. This movie's a rip-off!

I'm also perplexed as to who thought it was a good idea to fight Gengar with a water-type, especially a low-tier like Blastoise.

That said, on the more positive side, we did get Magikarp evolving into Gyarados, and Pikachu does in fact know the disadvantage to using Volt Tackle, so it's got a few things down.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Detective Pikachu had some cool scenes, but the twist with Bill Nighy's character was weird.

[Foggle]

Just saw John Wick Chapter 3 as part of a triple feature with the whole trilogy. It was everything I've ever wanted from an action movie!

[LumRanmaYasha]

I'm really late to these John Wick films - still haven't seen the first two, which I want to watch before Chapter 3. Unfortunately, they aren't streaming on Netflix or Hulu, and the library requests for the dvds number in the dozens. I'll probably have to rent them off Amazon if I want to watch them...and based on all the good things I'm hearing, I think I'll bite the bullet and watch them sometime this weekend!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm not sure why, but I naturally just assumed that John Wich Chapter 3 would be closing out a trilogy, even though it wasn't advertised as a final chapter. But it doesn't. It really is just a third chapter....and I'm totally OK with that. I already want to watch it again.