Some good movies in theatre right now.

Anyone try the VR Star Wars secret of the empire at cinemark plano?

$30 a ticket. Worth it? Originally Posted by dallasfan

Yes. I think so. I am not sure I would do Star Wars again but they are supposed to have ghost busters soon and I may try it

Watched Bohemian Rhapsody last night....i liked it but honestly the prosthetic Rami Malik wore made him seem like an actor wearing obvious fake fangs to play Dracula....I enjoyed A Star is Born much much more...

Been binge watching a show called Counterpart with J.K. Simmons....outfuckingstanding Originally Posted by Butch Cassidy

I thought A Star is Born was birder line awful. Very dull movie.

Alita was pretty good imo.

Watching Velvet Buzzsaw.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7043012/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdAR-lK43YU

She is 65 now?

When did she turn 65?





Lethal Weapon 3 and 4 and The Thomas Crown Affair remake were over 20-27 years ago?

Where did the time go?

I haven't been to the theatre in years.

Just finish watching all 10 Episodes of Season 2 of the Icelandic series

Ófærð aka Trapped

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3561180/



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4IVJdW78uU

What an intelligent. riveting, thrilling, white-knuckle suspenseful show with so many twists and turns you will never see coming:

how many secrets can a small town have and how were they able to keep them all a secret for 20 years???

WOW!!

Season 3 is already in the works.

Why can't American TV make shows like this???

10/10

Originally Posted by CG2014

Thanks for the suggestion. I watched all 10 episodes the past couple of days and really enjoyed it. If you have Netflix, check out Hinterland and Shetlands.

Glad you enjoyed it.

I stumbled upon Season 1 when it was broadcast on BBC UK 4 years ago and I was hooked immediately.

If you like sci-fi blockbuster thrillers, check out "The Wandering Earth" now playing in selected theaters. But hurry, it was made in China where it was a huge hit, but got almost no PR here so the audience is small and it may not stay around too long. The dialog is (mostly) in Chinese with English subtitles, but it's very well done. I liked it a lot. There are trailers here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLcghUzzQCg
and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8LAwozrXPo

The Wandering Earth is on its way to becoming the highest grossing movie in history.

It already passed the half billion dollars mark at over $650 billions USD and that was in 3 weeks, long before it had a limited theatrical relase outside of China.

NetFlix has bought out the rights to have it shown in the USA.

China is beating India and the USA in making movies. They have so many movie studios there like we have 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Universal, Disney and so on.

But many of their production lots for just one studio are the size of a city.

Many Hollywood movies are now labeled Hollywood Made In China.

Pay attention to the opening logos at many recent big Hollywood productions like Kong Skull Island or Mission Impossible or The Meg or The Martian and many other recent billon dollar hits (and also millions dollars domestic box office flops) that Hollywood put out:

one or two of those production companies logos shown at the beginning of the movie are Chinese companies like Alibaba Pictures.

Especially if you see a cast of American and Western actors and actress and there is one or two odd cast members who are Chinese, that movie is Hollywood Made in China.

Chinese companies tell the Hollywood studios they will help finance the movie including production and distribution and in return, that movie must be released in China (and many times they are released in China a week or so before they are released in the USA) and the cast must have one or two Chinese actor and/or actresses.

This deal is very advantageous to Hollywood studios:

the movie will be shown in China with a population of 1.41 billions.

If the movie doesn't do well at the box office domestically (USA and Canada), it will still make money in China earning back its production cost.

The Chinese love American movies and even if it's a sucky movie, they will flock to the theaters by the millions of people to see it.

The Chinese love American movies and even if it's a sucky movie, they will flock to the theaters by the millions of people to see it. Originally Posted by CG2014

The Chinese, especially the younger generation, seem to love all things Western. You see young people wearing all kinds of clothing with English writing, and sometimes I'm pretty sure they don't really understand the meaning.

But this was not a sucky movie. Yes, the premise is a bit far-fetched and like a lot of sci-fi you have to suspend disbelief to some extent, but it was VERY well done IMHO. With decent PR and advertising, I think it could do even better here than it seems to be doing.

China is beating India and the USA in making movies. They have so many movie studios there like we have 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Universal, Disney and so on.

But many of their production lots for just one studio are the size of a city. Originally Posted by CG2014

They have a lot of experience at making movie-like video. A lot of Chinese TV is what we would think of as a very long mini-series, mostly drama that runs for 30 episodes or so. A lot of them that I have seen seem to be very well done. There are many of them running on TV in original release or sometimes reruns, and many more available online.

Some of those Chinese TV mini-series run for 200 episodes and the story span decades and even a century.

Vox Lux (2018)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5960374/



WARNING: This review contains SPOILERS!!

Plot Device or plot mechanism,

is any technique in a narrative used to move the plot forward. A contrived or arbitrary plot device may annoy or confuse the reader, causing a loss of the suspension of disbelief. However a well-crafted plot device, or one that emerges naturally from the setting or characters of the story, may be entirely accepted, or may even be unnoticed by the audience. (source: WIKI)

The first half of the movie begins with Celeste (Natalie Portman) being born in 1986.

In 1999 at the age of 13, while she was attending a public school in New York city, a student shoots up the school and in the process, injures her and kills several students including her friends.

Celeste recovers from her wounds and sings at the memorial service. Her singing gets noticed and with the help of a talent manager (Jude Law), she becomes a rising star.

The second half of the movie begins 2017, Celeste is now 21 years old:

she has put her personal tragedy of the school shooting behind her.

Celeste has become a global pop icon, a celebrity powerhouse, an American icon and she is also seen as a secular deity by millions of her fans worldwide.

She makes a music video of her latest pop single.

In it she and the troupe of dancers wear masks.

In a beach town in Croatia, a group of gunmen wearing the same exact masks shoots 14 beachgoers to death and injure many others.

The media tries to put a negative spin on Celeste by tying her music to the terrorists.

Can Celeste deal with the media and again recover from another tragedy and continue to be who she is and the musical pop star she has become and rise above it all?

Now I don't know what this movie was aiming for!!

First to use a school shooting as the plot device for the origin of the main character, the movie makers should be ashamed of themselves.

They could had used something else like maybe someone Celeste loves survives a personal battle against cancer and it inspires her to write songs and sing.

Then to start the second half of the movie with another mass shooting event just to re-elevate and rebirth her character, that's just unacceptable!!

E especially in this day and time where almost every week there is a mass shooting occuring in the USA somewhere.

Furthermore, the movie does not try to convey any solutions or explanations to why these mass shootings are occuring and what we as society can do to prevent them and to stop them from re-occuring.

The acting and dialogue is also very bland.

The singing and concert sequences were very unconvincing.

There were also several scenes where Natalie Portman came across as being bored or distant or just aloof to the whole thing:

it was as if she showed up on the set for that day of filming just so she can get a paycheck.

Why did someone as talented and straight headed as Natalie Portman even agreed to make this movie after she read the script is beyond me!

On the top of the movie poster, it reads:

"Prepare to be Vowed"

I was not Vowed one bit. I was bored while at the same time I was puzzled.

To use such controversial topic as school shooting and mass shooting as the plot device and to not make any effort to explain why such tragedies keep occuring and to not offer solutions, it just makes the entire movie quite pointless.

It also makes me question whether this film's screenwriters and director and producers have a unhealthy and morbid fascination with mass shootings.

Sorry, Natalie, you know I have always admired you, your talent, your tenacity ever since you made your critically acclaimed film debut in The Professional when you were just 13 years old:

in the the past 25 years since that film, you have made many great movies which have showcased your great acting skills and range.

But this is one time I have to say you dropped the ball with this film.

Natalie: hopefully your next film Lucy in the Sky where you play an astronaut, loosely based on these events will be better:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_N...rlando_Airport

In the meantime I can only give your latest cinematographic appearance an:

1/5

Recently saw They Shall Not Grow Old, the Peter Jackson documentary on World War I. Very, very good.

Joker