Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-03-28 (Thursday)

On 3/29/2024 4:31 PM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

On 3/29/2024 4:19 PM, Arthur Lipscomb wrote:

On 3/29/2024 4:05 PM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

On 2024-03-29 22:42:16 +0000, Dimensional Traveler said:
>

>
I don't remember either episode of Twilight Zone mentioned.  I especially don't remember an episode where someone ages backwards.  The closes I can think is the guy who was obsessed with his mom and the episode ends with him being a child again while his wife looks on in horror.
>

That was an earlier episode.
 

>

Apparently I missed the time travel bus to today that departed yesterday so you'll just have to settle for what I watched yesterday, not what I'm going to watch this evening.

>
You didn't - Ubi trolled the rest of us, and I didn't notice because I just followed up to Anim.
>

What Did You Watch?

>
I saw:
>
March Madness - San Diego State, which did OK in the first half, gets blown out by UConn in the second. Arizona loses a close one. UNC loses a close one. Meh.
>
An ep. of B&B - Gotta love how you can check back on this show after months, and have missed absolutely nothing! But, in this one, it seems like they're going to write out Thomas (and his kid) at least temporarily, which leaves dumb Hope with *nothing*, which I do find amusing. But at the end, Steffi shows up to gloat, which just makes her an asshole!
>
A lackluster ep. of "Wheel of Fortune" in which Pat made two uncharacteristic mistakes.
>
Part of "Moneyball", which I had never seen before.
>

>
>
It's a good movie.  It was on my short list when I did a sports movie marathon a few weeks ago.  But all the sports movies I watched were football based and this is baseball movie.
>
>
I watched:
>
>
Invincible (Amazon streaming) Season 2 resumed a couple of weeks ago.  I watched the first two episodes that were already available.
>
"This Must Come as a Shock" - Season 2, episode 5.  Picking up where the last episode ended Mark is still on an alien planet.  The people build a ship so he can return home but ask that he take his half brother with him.  He does and his mother takes it surprisingly well, all things considered.  She is basically asked to raise her murderous ex husband's son.  Meanwhile the Martians finally head towards Earth forcing the team to break into two with one group going to stop the Martians and the other left to protect Earth resulting in a cliffhanger ending involving both teams.
>
"It's Not That Simple" - Season 2, episode 6. This episode resolves the cliffhangers from the previous episode.
>
>
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (theatrical) Latest entry in the new Godzillaverse franchise.

 Trademark pending.
 

Picking up after "Godzilla vs. Kong" there is an uneasy truce between the two titans.  Kong lives in hollow Earth and is searching for his people while Godzilla remains on the surface and is hunting other monsters and has basically become the savior of humanity. Although it's almost comical how one country tries to "stop" Godzilla from trashing one of their cities.  Look if Godzilla needs to trash your city to stop some other monster, just stay out of his way and let him do his thing!  Anyway Kong finally finds his people and it turns out they aren't very nice.  Forcing him to call Godzilla for reinforcements and once again save the day.  Story wise, the plot was paper thin.  But it did deliver on giant monsters smashing stuff.  I'll take what I can get.   But I would appreciate a better story next time.  Or at least better acting!  I know it's a giant monster flick, I was a bit spoiled with the earlier movies having much better casts and stories than this one.

 So the CGI needs to take some acting classes?
 

The CGI was OK.  I'm actually planning to see it a second time in IMAX 3D.  A lot of the look of the movie was clearly meant to be in 3D and I think it will benefit from the extra dimension.  But the actors were for the most part just sort of alright.  I think the movie suffered from losing all of their A-List cast.  Even Millie Bobby Brown ditched the franchise.  I was actually expecting to see her in it.  And I was also hoping to see some of the TV series cast and they were MIA too.  Kurt Russel would have done wonders for this movie.  Look at the cast comparison:
Godzilla: Ken Watanabe (Academy Award nominee), Juliette Binoche (Academy Award nominee), Elizabeth Olsen (multiple award nominee), Sally Hawkins (multiple award nominee), David Strathairn (multiple award nominee), and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (multiple award nominee), Bryan Cranston (Academy Award nominee).  This movie is *stacked* with Academy Award / Golden Globe Award nominees and winners.
Kong: Skull Island: I'm not going to go through the whole list, but once again you have multiple Academy Award nominated actors including Sam Jackson.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters: Once again excellent cast multiple Academy Award nominated actors.  This one is my favorite of the franchise.
Godzilla vs. Kong: This is the one where they started to sideline the actors a bit and worry less about plot.  Look, I know these are all giant monster flicks.  I'm not saying any of them are best picture material.  Just the actors weren't necessarily phoning it in, in the earlier movies, and even if they were Ken Watanabe or Sam Jackson's B game is still better than most other actors A game.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire: The actors were phoning it in!  This was just a pay check.  Top billing went to Rebecca Hall, a respectable actress, but completely forgettable.  And the other hold over was Brian Tyree Henry who I was over the top, but not in a good way.
I think what the earlier movies understood is when you're not watching a giant monster smash something, you're watching the actors act.  So don't skimp on that part.  This movie did.