It's Back: Exceelent Movies I've Seen Lately

[chancellor]

Anyone seen Moonage Daydream yet? Figured DMT might have caught it already, but haven't seen him around in a while.

[revo]

If you are a war movie aficionado, the Netflix remake of “All Quiet on the Western Front” is absolutely amazing, I would rank it as a Top 15 all-time war flick.

[Gregg]

Mrs. Gregg and I watched Orphan: First Kill on Friday night. This is a prequel Orphan (2009).

It was my wife's suggestion. Based on some of the things I have asked her to watch with me I of course said sure. Inside my head I was not thrilled and expected little, even though it has a 72% Rotten Tomatoes rating.

It turned out to be fun time. So much more than I expected. Creepy not scary. Jumpy and a bit funny without being campy. Some great twists and turns. Isabelle Fuhman was most excellent as the orphan. Julia Stiles steals the show. Well done Julia!

If you like this type of movie this will be a fun ride.

[chancellor]

Went to Wakanda Forever this weekend and was disappointed. It wasn't bad or awful or anything like that, but it was painfully formulaic. And sections were pretty boring. They did do a great job with Chadwick Boseman's remembrance. The CGI, of course, was amazing, and they did a good job in setting up a sequel, but all in all, I walked out saying "it was OK, but they could have done soooooo much better.".

[revo]

Took the kids to see Black Adam and I thought it was really very good. Possibly one of DC’s best adaptations.

[Gregg]

Amsterdam is NOT exceelent. It should be but it is not.

I was looking forward to it based on the previews. Filmed beautifully, filled with familiar good to great actors, time piece, checked all of the boxes.

I found it boring. The acting was at times very good. At other times the same actors so over the top making themselves a caricature of themselves that it was hard to watch. The message was fine but not well executed.

Mrs. Gregg bailed and went to bed. I bailed and watched football. I came back to it last night (Mrs. Gregg is out of town) hoping for a big finish. It did not come. Potential unrealized. Waste of time.

[heyelander]

Amsterdam is NOT exceelent. It should be but it is not.

I was looking forward to it based on the previews. Filmed beautifully, filled with familiar good to great actors, time piece, checked all of the boxes.

I found it boring. The acting was at times very good. At other times the same actors so over the top making themselves a caricature of themselves that it was hard to watch. The message was fine but not well executed.

Mrs. Gregg bailed and went to bed. I bailed and watched football. I came back to it last night (Mrs. Gregg is out of town) hoping for a big finish. It did not come. Potential unrealized. Waste of time.

was really looking forward to it, but all the reviews said it was a mess. really sad at it.

[Gregg]

Friday night Mrs. Gregg and I invited our 27 year old daughter and two of her theater friends over to introduce them to a proper viewing of Young Frankenstein. I say proper as we first watched the original Frankenstein followed by The Bride of Frankenstein. We took a break for some Pat and Ron's thin crust pizza.

We then proceeded to watch Young Frankenstein. One of the friends had seen none of the movies, my daughter only Young Frankenstein, the 3rd guest had been in the musical version, and had only seen the movie or parts of the movie years ago. All were impressed and enjoyed the fullness of the humor after seeing the originals.

The first two movies took less than 2.5 hours. We were finished about 11:00.

3 Exceelent movies, 3 Exceelent Pizza's an Exceelent evening for all.

[Sour Masher]

was really looking forward to it, but all the reviews said it was a mess. really sad at it.

I think the audience score is more representtive of its enjoyablity than the critic score. I do agree that is wasn't great or as good as I'd hoped, but it wasn't terrible. I wonder if Gregg was thinking of Bale's character when he said sometimes the acting was over the top. IDK, I loved his take on the character--he and Robbie were my favorite parts of the movie. I'm a sucker for period pieces, and I liked the reminder/message that fascism has tried to take over this country before. The bit at the end with the side by side speeches by DeNiro and the actual general it was based on was a nice touch. Not a great movie, but it had redeeming qualities. I don't regret watching it.

[madducks]

Just watched "The Other Guys" for the first time and thought it was hilarious. The movie is about two terrible cops who try to replace two great cops. It has to be Will Ferrell's most underrated movie. I think I enjoyed it more than "Anchorman". It's from 2010 and has an all-star cast with Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Michael Keaton, Eva Mendes, and brief appearances by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson. Michael Keaton is exceelent as Captain Gene Mauch who has a second job as a manager at Bed, Bath, & Beyond.

[Gregg]

If you are a fan of Credence Clearwater Revival you will love

Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall - Netflix

New footage from 1969 and 1970. The group is just on top of their game. So so good.

[Teenwolf]

I've seen Weird: The Al Yankovich Story twice now, and it's hilarious. Has the over-the-top tone of UHF, MacGruber, etc. My 15 year old daughter really enjoyed it as well.

Free on Roku TV (with minimal ads).

[Gregg]

Had a young house guest last night. Her parents are at a hockey tournament in Ohio (with my daughter and grandson). We will take her to her own game tonight.

I suggested we do Pizza and a Movie. As a guest she gets to pick out her own pizza and the movie. She said she would like to watch Sandlot or maybe Babe which she hasn't seen. At game time she went with Sandlot. Exceelent choice!

As soon as it was over I made the executive decision to turn on Babe. She loved it. Mrs Gregg and I haven't seen it in many years also enjoyed it. Excellent on it's own made more exceelent sharing it with someone for the first time.

Sandlot and Babe Excellence revisited.

[revo]

My middle son wanted to watch a movie last night, so after awhile he puts on "Grease," which I've seen many times of course (and even starred as Danny Zuko as a 15-yr old in a camp production, lol), but sadly, after not having seen it for at least 10 years, it proved to be nearly unwatchable. First, I'm not sure if this was a sign of the times of when it was made (1978) or when it was supposed to be (1958), but the extremely large cast was ENTIRELY white. Like BLINDINGLY white. Like not even a single bystander 100 feet from the main character was non-white. Second, all of these "high school kids" were in their mid-20s to mid-30s. Crap, Stockard Channing ("Rizzo") was THIRTY FOUR.

We breezed through the movie to get to the songs, which are still great, but the movie itself, eh, I'll pass.

[madducks]

My middle son wanted to watch a movie last night, so after awhile he puts on "Grease," which I've seen many times of course (and even starred as Danny Zuko as a 15-yr old in a camp production, lol), but sadly, after not having seen it for at least 10 years, it proved to be nearly unwatchable. First, I'm not sure if this was a sign of the times of when it was made (1978) or when it was supposed to be (1958), but the extremely large cast was ENTIRELY white. Like BLINDINGLY white. Like not even a single bystander 100 feet from the main character was non-white. Second, all of these "high school kids" were in their mid-20s to mid-30s. Crap, Stockard Channing ("Rizzo") was THIRTY FOUR. We breezed through the movie to get to the songs, which are still great, but the movie itself, eh, I'll pass.

I was a manager at the local Hollywood Video back in the 90's and one of my teenage employees loved that movie so much that she would play it in the store VCR every time she worked. And we had about two dozen TVs set up around the store so it was unavoidable. Now, I like the movie, but not several times a week. So, after a few too many viewings, I started hiding all the in-store copies (I think we had 3 total) whenever I saw her name on the schedule. It was funny. The other employees knew that I was hiding them in the managers office. When she would see no copies on the shelf she would check the computer inventory and see that we had a copy or two in stock and start asking the other employees if they saw any of them lol. I think she got the message after awhile.