I have watched a surprisingly small number of movies over the past few years, mainly because I have been so busy and also because not that many new movies have appealed to me.
On a set of recent flights I watched a bunch of movies in a row:
1) Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. It’s the prequel to the series and stars the character who later becomes a main villain in the series, so that is neat. Not bad actually. I found it pretty engaging even though the original Hunger Games series lost my interest somewhere around the second movie.
2) The Creator. Sci Fi military/drama/action movie about AI. It had a decent plot structure and theme, but overall was pretty “meh” and had some distracting plot holes.
3) Ferrari. A biopic about Enzo Ferrari during some of the harder years of his life. Great acting from Driver and Cruz. Somewhat underwhelming overall story, but solid film imo.
4) Wish. The first critically-panned Disney animated film in a long time. I was curious to see what was so bad about it. Imo the problem was not that it was truly bad per se but that it was aggressively mediocre. Songs felt kind of forced or out of place. The plot structure itself was pretty creative. There was hype from some conservatives around this movie being “woke” but I didn’t see that as being the case. It’s ironically about a bunch of people fighting for personal liberty and a smaller role for government, lol.
Is this a hidden request for recommendations?
I am open to hearing some. Won’t be watching many but plan to watch some.
Movies in the last few years have really been mediocre at best. Really feels like they are just phoning it in at this point.
The two new Dune movies are worth watching, really faithful to the original text, and slick
I just watched Heat. Does anyone want to talk about it?
non recent movies I like: incendies, parasite, gone girl. recent movie I watched: Saltburn 😊
Parasite: I second this recommendation. it's an instant classic for me. A combination of humor, violence, and class commentary.
Dune 1 & 2: Release yourself from the worries of logical plot holes and enter the beautiful world of Dune, give in to the spice.
Interstellar: Great time bending sci-fi.
Pig: Nic Cage and a truffle pig, and it's so good.
I still need to see Dune 2..
I lost patience with Number 1 - Hunger Games prequel. Couldn’t finish it.
In similar bucket re movies. Did squeeze in the Tour De France documentary series on Netflix recently.
Fantastic.
Anatomy of a fall was pretty good.
Lots of stuff to think about there as far as the disturbing nature of modern legal systems and how they tend to promote/profit off human suffering.
Watch the first 2 episodes of fallout then call out Elon (he’s a fan) on how the girl from vault could just back to the vault print the crap out the currency (bottle “caps”) and pay for her dad to be returned safely… ruining the whole series 🤣
I’m 4 shows in and it’s really all about everyone on the surface has extremely high time preference and everyone in the vaults have a low time preference.
The new series Fallout on Amazon is worth a watch in my opinion.
I also watched Ferrari on a flight home this week. Great acting for sure. The story was contained to one short period but they introduced some bigger topics that never got any follow up - like the funding from Ford/Fiat. Demise of Maserati, etc.
High-time preference ruins everything. I wonder if AI is going to make things even worse for industries that rely heavily on imagination and creativity.
Good to know someone else lost interest in The Hunger Games.
check out civil war! such a tense, unsettling film. brilliant acting and amazing cinematography. disclaimer: this is not a “hollywood” film, it doesn’t hold your hand and really trusts the audience to draw their own conclusions.
Movies will be good again when my kids’ generation is making them. They are a funny and very creative bunch.
I think the creative minds in Hollywood became tried of creating propaganda films and moved onto more interesting careers.
I found the '3 Body Problem' series was engaging.
Wish is actually one of my more favorite Disney movies lately. But I prioritize plot over anything else. And this one has a unique plot. Agree there wasn’t any wokeness in it.
Appreciate your update. Just saved me alot of time ;)
I know you didn't ask for a recommendation, but the German show Dark on Netflix was a wild ride. I highly recommend it if you like time travel, complicated family lines/relationships, and a general sense of WTF.
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