Films The Official bit-tech Movie Thread - What have you seen lately?

I was worried the film would let me down like all other films based on my childhood stuff but not long realised the direct also made Bumblebee which is the one of the only decent Transformers films made and that is my childhood.

 

I'm off to Disclosure Day tonight. Which is ironic, given the life events that are also due to unfold.

Will report back.

 

Disclosure Day (My life) - The usual sh1te/10
Do not recommend.

Disclosure Day (Cinema) - Spielberg/10
This deserves the rating I've given it. You already know roughly what's going to happen and how it'll play out, with one question mark maybe hanging over the ending. It's a Spielberg sci-fi, which means kind of "lightly fantastic" a la Close Encounters or ET. If you liked those, you'll like this. It doesn't go mad on special effects and the story has been done a hundred times, but it's engaging, despite never really expanding upon an obvious plot thing (are these what they call MacGuffins?). It has a wee bit more action than the other two films mentioned (are these a Spielberg sci-fi trilogy of sorts?) and all the actors are well on form, but has less emotion than ET and more of the naïve wonder of Close Encounters. It's a good spectacle in IMAX, but would also work well if you have a good size TV and waited for video release. I suppose it would get maybe a 7/7.5, but could be a couple of points either side of that depending how you react to what I just said.

 

Fuze (Sky) - Dud/10
If it could get a minus rating for poor spelling and still be wittily scored, I would have done so. Some famous faces in this and in theory it could have worked, but it just doesn't go off. Something very homemade about it, not sure if it's some of the acting (bomb disposal Major) or some of the ideas (fly valuable drones to a person of somewhat questionable authenticity) but I kept running the clock down mentally. Then I woke up and they all seemed to have been dropped into a war in a desert. I'll rewind it and watch the end for completeness, but I was far from blown away.

Right, now hands up who's impressed how many bomb jokes I managed to get in there.

Running Man (new version) (Sky) - Dumbing Man/Wronging Man/Crawl (pick one, I couldn't)/10
Crap. It says Edgar Wright - if this is the same dude as Shaun and Hot Fuzz, then something's happened here. It's clearly trying to be a sort of comedy, but fails. It scores for not trying to be a straight reboot, but fails on everything else. Even the ending is a bit out of sorts with the logic of the main chap - he seems to have given up on the thing that's been his main focus throughout. Run away.

 

Did you notice the odd thing about it?

Spoiler

For a movie about aliens, it's weird that no-one ever says the a-word, event when meeting one at the end!

 

Really?! No, I don't think I did! Subconsciously I might have been waiting to see what "happened instead" (without spoiling your spoiler) but I only think that now because you've made me think back.

Good spot!

 

Yeah, I didn't realise it either until I was leaving the cinema.

 

Backrooms=ass

 

"Bummer", then. I'll cross that one off and wait for Sky. Why?

 

Running Man 2025, not great yet 100% better than the original movie and 200% closer to the original Bachmann / King story, although the touchy feely ending when compared to the book ending sucked big time.

 

Jesus. You must have watched a different film to me...!

 

Nope, I just came at it from a different direction, 30 years of a bad taste in my mouth left by the first film that was a travesty for anyone who read and enjoyed the book.
The 2025 version isn't great, I'd not watch it twice, but it held pretty close to book storyline, except for the doubly naff ending, but hey folk must have a hero nowadays.

 

It had its moments and was creepy here and there.
Ending disappointing.
Lots left unexplained.

 

Lee Cronin's The Mummy (Sky) - Pedicure/10
Gross, in many places, but somewhat predictable and by the numbers. If there's nothing else to watch, then fine, but I'm sure there must be. Hail Mary is on Prime now, so I'll give that a go next. If you just want the grim stuff, this is good: Lee Cronin's The Mummy | The Most Disturbing Scene Yet | Movie Clip | Warner Bros. Entertainment - skip to around 2m40 if you're in a rush. Not really a spoiler, just a gross clip. Literally.

 

It is a mere oversight on my part that I didn't see this post at the time.

But it's an endemic design problem in streaming platforms like Netflix that I didn't even hear of it once in the subsequent year and a half. Can we talk about this? Netflix actually has some good content, but at various points in the past year I've heard some people say "wow there is just nothing good on Netflix". I've said it. Then we compare notes and the people who are only seeing absolute sileage realise that their algorithm just isn't showing them the good stuff. They have to manually search for it, and hope their algorithm learns that they like good stuff. Except stuff is good across multiple vectors, so it's forever likely that you will just not be presented with certain excellent content because it doesn't match your algorithmically defined preferences.

Platforms like Netflix have an absolute iceberg of content, and only a tiny tip of it can be presented to you on the front page. That's inevitable. The way around this design flaw is (I spit and choke to say it) infinite scroll. Categories, keywords, proximity lists that actually go on forever. The anemic little "We think you'll like" and painfully broad "Film/Sci-Fi/Adventure" sections cap out at a few dozen entries and simply won't show you more, but if you go searching by title it quickly becomes apparent that there are thousands upon thousands of titles on Netflix that the platform's structure just has no way of letting you browse.

It's almost an Elite Dangerous situation where the awful in-house UI will surely provoke the creation of third-party tools to allow better, more complex user interactions and information finding. If these tools already exist please for the love of Zeus somebody let me know.

 

I feel that.

The Bear on D+ is a win though.

I'm having a tough time at the moment so bear with me (pun not really intended nor present) but it's worth your time. Can't really see to type but hope this gets out.

I need to get in touch with a few members to apologise for my tardy responses but I'm trying to ensure normal service resumes. My aunt is coming over tomorrow to help me. I hope.

 

There are third-party services or apps you can use to track your watch history - some that spring to mind are Trakt, MyAnimeList, “My Movies”. Pretty sure even IMDB’s app does this. Though I don’t know whether they offer recommendations, or are purely for tracking. Something like that must exist though.

The catch, at least for me, is that you have to update these things manually.

That doesn’t sound like a big deal on the surface, but it’s another point of friction. And when you have a neurodevelopmental disorder that significantly impacts your short-term “working” memory, attention regulation, long-term planning, etc - aka ADHD - those points of friction that are small and insignificant to others become entry barriers for you.

I.e., you try the cool new fun thing for a little while then quickly either lose interest or just plain forget about it.

But. As I say, that’s mostly a me/ADHD problem, and not a failing with any particular platform, service, software, etc.

 

Watching the new masters of the universe movie gone on prime very fast must of bombed at the cinema but I'm liking it so far maybe it's because I'm a old fart.

 

I do like the way they retcon all the dumb character names by claiming that's just what Adam called them when he was a little kid

 

Seriously?!!?

No Ram-Man??