Good or New Movies Review

[Sparks]

@BetterNow said in Good or New Movies Review:

My boy looking amazing instead of like a guy in a rubber chicken suit. Seeing my childhood monsters as they were meant to be in my child's mind was the purest kind of joy. Mothra was beautiful. Ghidorah moved gorgeously. Big G was splendid.

I was going to go see it this weekend with my dad, but schedules didn't work out. I'm planning to go with him on Wednesday.

My dad loves kaiju movies. When I was little, whenever he could find one showing somewhere, he would take me and/or my brother to watch them. Whenever they were on TV, he would watch them with us. He had vintage movie posters for several Godzilla movies that he had managed to collect while mom lived in Japan before they were married, and he had hung them all in the hall outside my brother and my bedrooms; they're still there. We watched them enough that my brother and I both learned at a young age to sing the Mothra summoning song (the original Malay one, not the Japanese one they used in later movies).

Ever since this movie trailer came out, I've been wanting to take my dad to go see it, and I am very much looking forward to it.

(wanders off, humming "Mosura ya Mosura, dongan kasakuyan indo muu...")

[Ghost]

@Sparks Hell yes.

I'm gonna say it's my favorite since Godzilla 2000, which is my go-to Gojira flick.

[Too Old For This]

Godzilla King of Monsters was goddamn majestic and I will hear nothing against it! The human element was as thoroughly gone into as it needed to be to move their part of the plot along, which was just enough to remind us that yes, this is a kaiju world... but we still live in it too. And that's where it should be. Because its a fucking kaiju world we just live in it.

[BetterNow]

@Lotherio https://cdn2us.denofgeek.com/sites/denofgeekus/files/styles/article_width/public/2019/05/rodan-1956.jpg?itok=r4ksyiQi

[BetterNow]

@Ghost They moved Mothra's site to China in the film, so it made sense. Godzilla was Japan's, Mothra China, Rodan Mexico. Ghidorah....not from around here XD

[Ghost]

@BetterNow said in Good or New Movies Review:

@Ghost They moved Mothra's site to China in the film, so it made sense. Godzilla was Japan's, Mothra China, Rodan Mexico. Ghidorah....not from around here XD

That makes more sense, then. Mosura is a Chinese Kaiju!

I almost laughed seeing Kumonga (spider) ravaging my state.

[BetterNow]

@Ghost I wish we'd gotten some better looks at the others. There was another MUTO, the mammoth, Kumonga, the one from the mountain that may or may not have been Anguirus, but they said 17, so with G, Rodan, Ghidorah, and Mothra, and Kong that is 8 others we haven't seen yet.

[Ghost]

@BetterNow said in Good or New Movies Review:

@Ghost I wish we'd gotten some better looks at the others. There was another MUTO, the mammoth, Kumonga, the one from the mountain that may or may not have been Anguirus, but they said 17, so with G, Rodan, Ghidorah, and Mothra, and Kong that is 8 others we haven't seen yet.

And God I hope we see them. I know Kong vs (His Eminence the One and True King) Gojira is greenlit, but I hope they bring in enough cheddar to keep going after that. I'd love to see some classic "Gojira loses his shit and Queen Mosura kicks his ass into being chill again" kaiju combat.

[Jaded]

@Ghost
I'm just hoping we see a lot more of the original kaiju get to duke it out before we see them introduce mecha-godzilla. But I have this little wiggle in the back of my head that whispers to me the studio will be eager to get started on that particular battle, due to the popularity of mecha-godzilla in pop culture and whatnot.

[BetterNow]

@Ghost I don't think that'll happen. I think the rights revert to Toho after KvG

[Too Old For This]

@BetterNow The tusked ape was listed only as Behemoth and the giant dude in Germany is Methuselah. But they did say that there's 17 they knew of and counting. So like.. that one in Germany didn't seem to have a Site near it, meaning it could easily have been an unknown one. They mentioned one in Wyoming, but not the one in Arizona that cropped up? There was mention in the headlines during the credits of both Scylla and a giant squid that was not named. So they've certainly set it up for there to be more kaiju, including a bunch of new ones. Personally? I just want my Gamera to show up.

[BetterNow]

@Too-Old-For-This Gamera isn't part of Toho or the Godzilla universe Completely different (rival) company, so that isn't likely to every happen unless Legendary somehow gets rights to it.

[Too Old For This]

@BetterNow I CAN DREAM! T_T

[Auspice]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs5ZOcU6Bnw

How have we not been discussing this?

@Ghost I blame you.

[Ghost]

@Auspice gonna see the hell outta that

[Auspice]

@Ghost said in Good or New Movies Review:

@Auspice gonna see the hell outta that

If I didn't work freakin' SECOND SHIFT (ugh), I have passes for an advanced screening on Monday.

Anyone in Austin want them? Passes for 2 at 7:30p on Monday (the 10th).

(Seriously, until I'm off 2nd, I can be your movie hookup. I get opportunities for advanced screenings a couple times a month. Some of 'em are duds but some - LIKE THIS - are awesome.)

[Arkandel]

I have the feeling Dark Phoenix is, uh, not going to be a very good movie, just judging by the early reviews.

[Jaded]

@Arkandel
I agree. And since Disney just concluded their deal with Fox, I suspect we're going to be seeing a whole new X-Men reboot anyways, to bring them into the MCU.

[AeriaNyx]

I went to go see Brightburn yesterday, though man it was kinda hard to find a theater running it. From the trailer my initial thought was 'Oh, so it's a Superman movie set in a realistic setting, rather than in a comic-book type world'. And it was... and it wasn't.

The Good:
The premise itself is fantastically interesting. I am shocked that we haven't really had a superhero/horror crossover before. The effects were very sparingly used so it felt real in a way a lot of the CGI heavy movies don't. It had pretty decent acting. By that I mean, the actors themselves did a good job with what they had. Which takes me to...

The Bad:
When my husband, who is a writer comes out of the theater and says "I really hate using this word to describe writing a creative endeavor, but god damn was that some lazy writing." then there is definitely something off. There were so many narrative shortcuts taken, and it relied really heavily on the score (Complete with the ubiquitous BWAAAAAAHN) to try to influence the scariness, or provoke emotion. There are some incredibly heavy handed foreshadowing bits early on, and if there is a setup to a cliched horror shot (person looks forward, sees villain, looks away, looks forward, sees villain, looks away VILLAIN IS IN FRONT OF YOU) they pretty much took it. The Meg did a really good job of subverting cliched expectations. And if I'm using The Meg as an example of a better writing... Yikes?

I don't think this movie is going to do well enough to spawn a sequel, which given the credits sequence is a damned shame, because holy crap would I love to see those threads followed. All in all I think it is a super fascinating premise that would have been far better served with taking their time and really digging into it more, rather than floating on the surface of stereotypical horror.

[Auspice]

@AeriaNyx

Your husband's reaction has me inclined to wait for it to be on streaming. I am... supremely (thanks, degree, and all the screenwriting classes you put me through!) nitpicky on writing now.

It's both good and bad. It's good because man I can really, really appreciate well-done dialogue and pacing and I actually find myself going to see movies for repeat viewings now more than I ever did before (because I'll get that first time of just absorbing and then wanna go back so I can pay attention and understand how they did it / wrote it and sort of mentally compile the script). But then it's bad because when a movie is bad, it's really bad.