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Mycelia Board Game Review

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Outback Crossing Review

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What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

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09 Sep 2017 09:10 #253979 by Black Barney
Well... that's disappointing . Thanks Vlad for taking that bullet for us. Maybe it's still a cool movie but if IT isn't scary then what's the freaking point? It's like if JAWS had dentures and couldn't actually kill anybody, wouldn't be the same. "Get out of the water!!!" ..."I'm good."
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09 Sep 2017 14:12 - 11 Sep 2017 13:28 #253988 by Grudunza
I saw It last night and agree almost completely with you, Vlad. It does start out with a really scary, intense, and impactful occurrence. That should have been a benchmark for the rest of it. After that happened, I was thinking okay, shit, who knows if anyone is going to be safe?? That was an excellent and disturbing way to start things off. But then... well... Overall, it was enjoyable and entertaining, mainly for having a strong Stranger Things vibe (which is sort of a photocopy of a photocopy). Some of the clown scenes were genuinely creepy and unnerving to me. But yeah, no real consequences after the beginning (for anyone we cared about), and a screwy sense of its own rules... when can Pennywise actually do something, and when will he just be a creepy distraction? I also found the ending weird, between the girl and the two boys. You know what I mean. How did it end up the one way and not the other?

A decent thrill ride of sorts, and better than most Stephen King adaptations, but I don't think I'll care to see the sequel.
Last edit: 11 Sep 2017 13:28 by Grudunza.
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09 Sep 2017 14:45 #253990 by Vlad
Yep, that thing about Pennywise being as powerful as the director wants it to be in each scene is very cheap. I know the convenient explanation is that the more scared the kid is, the better for IT, but it didn't make me feel scared, which is kinda the point of a horror movie.
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09 Sep 2017 17:02 #253994 by Ancient_of_MuMu
I had never seen Network, mostly knowing it as the answer to a trivia question about posthumous oscars and that it contained the famous quote ""I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" but that was it. It was a bit scary to watch as it feels more relevant now than when it was made. It reminds me of Michael Lewis's book Liar's Poker, which he wrote trying to expose how awful high finance is, but too many people viewed it as a primer on how to get into the industry. The main weakpoint of the movie is the Mad as Hell scene comes midway, and as it is the probably the high point of the movie the second half feels weaker.
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11 Sep 2017 08:56 - 11 Sep 2017 09:21 #254045 by charlest
Network is fantastic!


I saw It as well and I pretty much agree with what's here. I thought it was somewhat entertaining but not really scary ("It Follows" which I saw recently was much more horrific). It is MUCH better than the miniseries though. I rewatched that last week in preparation - well, just the first half that parallels this new movie - and it was actually pretty bad. Tim Curry was solid, but it was very dated and felt cheesy.

I rewatched All the President's Men for like the 10th time this weekend, that's really one of my favorite films of all time. It's Hoffman and Redford at the top of their game, excellent writing, and fantastic direction. I wish the ending was a little less abrupt, but otherwise it's perfect.
Last edit: 11 Sep 2017 09:21 by charlest.
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11 Sep 2017 12:05 - 11 Sep 2017 12:10 #254055 by Pat II
I saw the premier of "The Cured" last night at the Toronto International Film Festival and it was much better than I was expecting. We were running late and thought we had missed some of the film but were quite relieved to find that it was showing in Imax and the film was on our schedule as well. The zombie genre is admittedly a tired one but this film touched on several good points quick enough without too much reaching in my opinion, to keep the pace moving along as any zombie film should. The story borrowed enough from David Moody's Hater world thrown in with "infected killer" zombies to keep it fresh.

It wasn't my usual Midnight Madness fare but well worth attending. Director and cast Q & A was nice.
Last edit: 11 Sep 2017 12:10 by Pat II.

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12 Sep 2017 05:51 #254088 by repoman
PU-239

Watched this HBO movie last night and was pretty impressed and entertained. It's the story of a Russian man who works in an outdated and crumbling nuclear enrichment facility sometime in the late 80's and what happens to him after he is exposed to a massive dose of radiation when one of the ill maintained pieces of equipment fails.

It was directed by Scott Burns who has more writing credits to his name than directorial but does a great job of evoking the gritty and rundown feel of Moscow in the age when the Soviets were waning and the gangsters were waxing in power. He also lets in some moments of humor to lighten the mood from time to time which help to enhance the movie.

All the performances are solid. I was impressed with Rahda Mitchell as the wife of the doomed man. I think she did a very good job of conveying her love for her husband without it being overly sappy. The best performance though was by Oscar Isaac as the bumbling small time hood, Shiv. You may remember him from The Force Awakens where he played Po Dameron the X-wing jockey.

The movie certainly didn't end the way I expected.


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13 Sep 2017 23:43 - 13 Sep 2017 23:46 #254221 by Gary Sax
Saw Aronofsky's Mother! this evening. It was like a combination cosmic horror/body horror/bad relationship movie depending on your read. It's pretty good but exhausting and dragged a bit for me. It's so laughably intense that I literally started laughing out loud in the theater when

Warning: Spoiler!


I find that although Aronofsky's movies are impeccably made, as I get older I am less and less curious to unravel a director's elaborate metaphors, even when they're reasonably straightforward. By 1/3 of the way through the movie I found myself thinking that I wish he'd just get to the part where he wraps up and gives us some clues about what the whole thing meant so I could get to repiecing the film together in my head.
Last edit: 13 Sep 2017 23:46 by Gary Sax.
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16 Sep 2017 09:33 - 17 Sep 2017 00:19 #254339 by Cranberries
I saw The Battle for Algiers last night at the local university's International Film showing For free!

It felt disturbingly relevant, and supposedly influenced Star Wars: Rogue One. It felt surprisingly modern and held our continuous attention. I guess the bleakness and futility of the resistance is what Rogue One drew upon.

"The Battle of Algiers" is "a training film for urban guerrillas," Jimmy Breslin declared on TV in 1968. Certainly it was shown by the Black Panthers and the IRA to their members, and in September 2003 the New York Times reported that the movie was being shown in the Pentagon to military and civilian experts. Times reporter Michael Kaufman wrote that Pentagon audiences were "urged to consider and discuss the implicit issues at the core of the film -- the problematic but alluring efficacy of brutal and repressive means in fighting clandestine terrorists in places like Algeria and Iraq." In short, the possibilities of torture.

www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-t...ttle-of-algiers-1967
Last edit: 17 Sep 2017 00:19 by Cranberries.
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17 Sep 2017 20:02 - 17 Sep 2017 20:03 #254370 by engelstein
Did our second trek to TIFF this year, and this time had a much better idea of how to navigate everything. Saw nine movies over three days, which was a little ambitious. But we had fun.

What we saw, in order of good to bad:

1. I, Tonya: The Tonya Harding story. Wildly inventive and entertaining. Definitely the highlight of the festival for us.

2. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women: About the origins of Wonder Women. Smart, sexy, and fun.

3. Shape of Water: Del Toro's latest is a fantastical mash-up of movie refs. Been waiting for the erotic version of ET? Here ya go. I liked this, but wasn't as in love as many others seemed to be.

4. One of Us: Documentary about people leaving Hasidic Satmar community in Brooklyn. Really well done and powerful. Coming to Netflix in October

5. Disobedience: Rachel McAdams and Rachel Weitz. Woman returns to Orthodox Jewish community after her father the Rabbi dies. Very good, but needed a bit more.

6. Mudbound: Share croppers in '40's Mississippi. well acted, but bleak, bleak, bleak. Felt long, and several scenes could have been easily cut. But the other folks we were with liked it better than me, so YMMV.

7. Scotty and the Secrety History of Hollywood: A gonzo documentary about the now 94 year old Scotty Bowman who was the center of setting up homosexual hookups for stars in the 1940's - 1970's. He's an interesting guy, but there was only about 45 minutes of material here stretched out to 90.

8. Downizing: Matt Damon gets shrunk. Wildly inventive, fun, and thought-provoking for the first half. But the second half throws it all away in a frustratingly lazy way. If the whole movie had been as good as the first half it would have easily been my #2 - maybe even #1. But I got so angered by the second half throwing away all the rules for the universe they carefully established, that I dropped it all the way down the 8th.

9. Kings: The LA riots after the Rodney King acquittals, with Halle Berry and Daniel Craig. Incredibly disjointed and a hot mess. I'm not sure why someone didn't step in and stop this train wreck from being released.

Geoff
Last edit: 17 Sep 2017 20:03 by engelstein.
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17 Sep 2017 23:03 #254384 by hotseatgames
Saw Hidden Figures this weekend. It was a really great film, although I don't like Kevin Costner. It also was frustrating that people were ever put through situations like this. I of course knew about the drinking fountains and sitting at the back of the bus; but I had never heard that libraries had their own "colored" sections. Shameful.

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18 Sep 2017 11:53 #254417 by Unicron
Saturday, I saw the contentious Mother. Overall, it was a mixed bag, but I thought that the photography and acting was stellar. I won’t spoil it for anyone, but my wife and I didn’t think it was very ambiguous. It did go from being a subtle metaphor to a very heavy handed one. I always go back and forth on whether or not the film had much of a statement to make, but given the terrible reviews and discussions with others, I think it pushed a lot of buttons, so it makes it a bit hard to write it off. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Aronofsky film that I wanted to see again, but as someone that watches about 400 movies every year, a film that's memorable is always preferable to the alternative.
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18 Sep 2017 12:19 #254419 by Michael Barnes
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Aronofsky film that I wanted to see again,

OMG this is just right on the mark. I've liked his work, appreciated his work...but yeah, I don't think I've seen any of them more than once.

I do really like that he's very much gone off in his own direction, there were a few times when he was on the verge of becoming more mainstream.
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18 Sep 2017 12:22 #254420 by jeb
Watched E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL with my 13yo and 12yo this weekend. They agree it was good, but it didn't make them sob like it did me (at age 9) or tear up (at age 44). I think it's because they are dead inside and I am a delicate desert blossom deeply in touch with my emotions.
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18 Sep 2017 12:37 #254421 by hotseatgames
A few years back I watched E.T. again. His special effects did NOT hold up. :)

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