The Babadook I'm not sure how this has 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. Boring and annoying is how I would describe it.
Mad Max Fury Road It was excellent during the action scenes, which featured a lot of insane stuntwork, but too sentimental and a bit corny for my tastes when the action slowed down. It has a group of super models who look really out of place in the movie and can't act at all. It was better than Beyond Thunderdome and the original Mad Max, but not as good as The Road Warrior, which I still think is the best Mad Max movie. Compared to any recent action movie though, this is a 10/10. It's nearly all stuntwork, and very little CGI. I think the rating is through the roof on IMDB because a lot of kiddies watching this have never seen a real Hard R 80's/90's style action film with stuntwork, and they've now realized that CGI superhero bullshit they've been watching is garbage. It did well enough to get a sequel, so it looks like Hard R action movies might make a comeback. The toughest character in the movie is a woman. Furiosa makes Max look kind of wimpy by comparison. I guess that's what the MRA/PUA types on the internet were getting so angry about.
The Imitation Game Turing pioneered computer science and AI, and helped shorten WW2 and save countless lives, but he was treated like a criminal because he was gay, and ended up killing himself because of it. A royal pardon hardly seems like enough to right the wrong that was done to this extraordinary man.
American Sniper Yet, another solid Clint Eastwood movie. This took a lot of flak but it absolutely did not glorify war. It didn't even glorify Chris Kyle, for that matter. It was a anti-war movie about the consequences of war on soldiers and their families. It was a sad movie, you can't help but feel bad at the sadistic irony in surviving 4 tours / 8 years in Iraq, only to be shot and killed in the USA. The only positive thing about it was that Bradley Cooper is a good actor. All the media bullshit surrounding it only deflected the whole Iraq war debacle, and the lack of consequences for elitist playing Call of Duty: IRL. 9/10
The real Chris Kyle was such a murderous scumbag and a liar that I can't bring myself to watch that. Seems like he got what he deserved after shooting a lot of women and kids in a war of aggression. He also ran a school that taught American cops how to abuse civilians using the Gestapo tactics he learned in Iraq. He was horribly racist, and liked to brag about sniping black Katrina survivors in New Orleans. Even if he was lying, hunting black people is still a terrible thing to brag about, and shows that he was a racist and a sociopath. Clint Eastwood is off his rocker. This is not the same thing as people who fought to defeat fascism in WW2. In the case of Iraq, we were the evil fascists. May as well make a movie glamorizing death camp slave snipers of the Waffen SS. The real Chris Kyle was a war criminal.
I try not to let personal lives impact my entertainment choices. I would rank American Sniper #2 behind Gran Torino as Clint Eastwood's best movie (director).
It isn't. The movie is very morally ambiguous. Could be my own projection, but I'd say it leans anti-war, anti-bush, anti-occupation if anything.
There is no moral ambiguity though. The war in Iraq was absolutely wrong. And Chris Kyle was a murderer who shot women and kids, and was really enthusiastic about doing it. That we have guys like Chris Kyle coming back and training our cops is a big part of why we are seeing so many abuses.
I've been meaning to see this. In college I spent a few weeks working on his Touring Machine concepts. The guy was pretty smart for his day.
It's a great film except they turned him into an awkward, autistic loner type and altered events to be more dramatic.
Spy Rose Byrne and Jason Statham are actually pretty good in this. But Melissa McCarthy ruins it by being her usual fat, unfunny self. She's not even believable as someone who can wobble more than a few feet without getting winded she's so fat. Her as a secret agent with elite fighting skills who gets the sexy man in the end is beyond retarded and totally unbelievable. This movie is like some wish fulfillment fantasy for morbidly obese, middle-aged cat ladies.
Terminator 2. Hadn't seen this for years; still really enjoyed it but was funny to see how bad some of the effects had aged. Almost tempted to rewatch 3 and salvation now, although I sense this may be a bad idea.
Is it really that funny how bad it aged considering what year it is now? T2 is from 1991. if you had a kid the same year that came out, you'd most likely be a grandfather now.
I thought T2 had aged pretty well when I watched it more recently. Some of the special effects may be dated, but it still has a lot of great stuntwork. I also still think it has the best pacing of any action movie I've seen. It's relentless and there's never a dull moment. James Cameron knows how to stay focused on the action while still telling a good story. It's up there with Aliens, Die Hard, and Total Recall as one of the few 10/10 action movies IMO.
T2:JD is still the best action movie ever, in my opinion. Like CM said, the absolutely perfect pacing is the key to its greatness. The CGI effects haven't aged too badly... but some of the non-CGI gunshot effects on the T-1000 could use a modern refinish. The closest I've seen to T2 pacing was actually The Equalizer last year. London Boulevard Colin Ferrell playing a cliched redemption seeking criminal who can't change his destiny. It was just alright, I'm not better or worse for watching it. The bad guy calling everyone a 'proper cunt' kept making me LOL. I don't understand what that means but I like it! 5/10