movie time!

Jul. 2nd, 2025 08:25 am
marcicat: (cat says hi)
Hahahahahaha I have now watched KPop Demon Hunters, heck yeah!

all the songs on youtube

My thoughts, in no particular order:

*KITTY! KITTYKITTYKITTY

*yeah, the tiger's my favorite

*IT'S A MUSICAL

*LOL

*okay, that was genuinely very fun to watch

*also the songs are great

never mind

Apr. 20th, 2025 08:21 am
marcicat: (life changing business card)
My thoughts watching the new Fantastic Four trailer:

*there must be a reason that screenshots from this keep showing up on my tumblr dash...

*oh, they're gonna have a baby!

*lol Pedro Pascal, I guess baby Franklin IS kind of like Grogu...

*is that why the screenshots? I thought the Mandalorian was over...

*hang on, lemme just look these people up

*ooooohhhhhh, it's because the actor who's playing Johnny Storm also played Eddie in Stranger Things

*yeah, as soon as the hair color was different I was never gonna recognize him

*he looks shorter? (then I remembered I've never actually seen Stranger Things)

*I mean, it might be a fun movie?

::silver surfer shows up to warn everyone that Galactus is gonna eat the planet::

*no, never mind

(Look, if this was gonna be a fun superhero movie about baby Franklin boggling the shit out of his parents and uncles, that sounds hilarious. I love it. But it sounds like it's gonna be an un-fun superhero movie that's mostly an excuse to spend tons of money creating special effects of the Silver Surfer and Galactus blowing stuff up, buildings being destroyed, etc, etc. They're probably going to be very impressive! I just don't care about that part.)
marcicat: (freakout squirrel)
Okay, I have ALSO now watched (parts of) X-Men: Dark Phoenix (thanks, [personal profile] starandrea!), and I am ALARMED at their lack of post-mission safety checks. EVERYONE should get a post-mission medical* check**, right?

(*PS: I do not think Hank is that kind of doctor.)

(**PPS: I did laugh that a genetic scan is part of the 'basic' checkup. LOL he probably IS that kind of doctor by that point in movie canon.)

(haven't they ever read comics before? going into space and coming back is a CLASSIC way to wind up with an alien passenger, an alien symbiote, exposure to unknown space radiation, etc, etc, etc)

(STORY TIME: Many years ago, I wound up in the hospital. I was asked again and again if I'd hit my head. Every time I said "no, I didn't hit my head; my head is fine." I had no memory of hitting my head! I was SURE I hadn't hit my head! It wasn't until DAYS LATER, and I was trying to figure out why brushing my hair hurt, that I realized I had a pretty large bump on my head. I DEFINITELY HIT MY HEAD. The shock of the entire experience meant I didn't remember hitting my head, and it genuinely felt fine when they asked (thanks, adrenaline). Luckily I was not in space, so no aliens or space radiation.)

ANYWAY the point is that I am fully supportive of believing people when they say they're fine, but also sometimes they have no idea what they're talking about.
marcicat: (art heart)
We watched 'Red White and Royal Blue' this week, which was harder technologically speaking than it had any right to be, but such is the state of current media viewing technology. The movie itself was so fun! Much less angsty than I was worried it would be. Two thumbs up; very watchable.

Then Star loaned me their kindle so I could read the book, which was even better! The movie definitely has the sense of being compressed, and the book has a lot more going on without getting bogged down in details. Book highlights: June, Nora, Bea's cat, more cameos from Henry's dog. Two thumbs up; very readable.

And THEN I thought to myself, 'wait, it's so much like a fanfic already... could there be...' Yep! Thousands of fics on A03 (under the book fandom). It looks like plenty of people are smooshing the book and movie together to really embrace the 'I write what I want!' joy of fanfic, which I 10,000% support.

Yay! Look at those kids, figuring things out and holding hands! (SO much hand-holding, SO good for my heart.)
marcicat: (duckling)
Yesterday, as I was driving back from the grocery store, I decided that I actually DID want to watch Independence Day 2, which led me down an absolute rabbit hole of trying to figure out how to do that. (Hint: it's NOT the thing preloaded on macs that has 'movie' in the name.)

ANYWAY finally the internet revealed to me that I should be looking for the "Apple TV" app on my computer, which seemed wrong to me in multiple ways, but was in fact correct, and there were my movies! All five of them.

And in a charming turn of events, I found that if you watch ID2 without expecting it to A) make sense relative to the first movie, or B) make sense relative to itself, AND you make sure to remember that with the advances in technology the movie shows that everyone is definitely fine and not dead, it's a rollicking good time! I enjoyed it very much. Two thumbs up as a way to celebrate the holiday!
marcicat: (heart dino)
*I enjoyed the second half more than the first, yay! Part of that was me just giving up, in the sort of 'the movie is already so weird, this might as well happen' way. Once I'd decided to watch all of it, there wasn't any reason to continue weighing my experience. I could just cling to any bits of enjoyment and fully embrace them.

*And part of it was that I felt the second half leaned into the cartoonishly villainous aspects of certain characters, which made the head-shakingly inexplicable responses seem more proportionate.

*In conclusion: If I wanted to watch a nearly-three-hour movie about how grief and trauma can make seeking help feel impossible, Black Panther 2 sure would be a good choice, and there's a completely unnecessary car chase thrown in as a bonus.
marcicat: (badger book)
*In my opinion, the least fun Marvel movie I have ever watched. It's SO lacking in fun that I may actually watch the second half, like a sort of curiosity factor. It can't ALL be unpleasant, right? (It's TWO HOURS and FORTY MINUTES long! It has to be some sort of statistical improbability for me to dislike all of it!)

*Okay, so I have TWO main issues with the movie. The first is plot-related, in the sense that I don't like it. I don't feel the MCU has made very interesting choices about integrating comic-book-type people and situations into the world. Virtually none of the aspects of the plot I've seen so far make any sense.

*My second issue is presentation-related, in the sense that I CAN'T SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING WHEN IT'S SO DARK ALL THE TIME and also I CAN'T HEAR THE DIALOGUE BECAUSE IT'S SO QUIET. I assume the CGI and graphics are impressive, but I don't know for sure because I can't see them. Is it a whale? A submarine? A dark blob? I CAN'T TELL!!! It felt like I spent the whole time squinting at the screen.

(There was a PARTICULARLY unlit scene in which I was taken completely by surprise when the subtitles told me elephants were trumpeting. I COULDN'T SEE ANY ELEPHANTS! The characters were looking in alarm at SOMETHING and I was like 'there's nothing there! just a dark screen!')

(The subtitles are somewhat the star of the movie, actually, because they describe the emotional tone of the music in each scene. ~suspenseful music playing~ or ~uplifting music playing~ or ~eerie music playing~ It's fascinating to me that the movie appears to depend on these subtitles to do 100% of the emotional labor.)

*In conclusion: there are hints of a much more interesting and well-lit movie hiding in this movie! Enough to maybe motivate me to watch the second half.
marcicat: (snowbirds on a line)
Yesterday we were both like 'ooh, Black Panther Wakanda Forever is out on streaming!' And then of course we had to check how long it is, and it is a WHOPPING two hours and forty-one minutes. WHY???? That's so long!

My thoughts about this situation, in no particular order:

*Thank goodness I don't have to sit through that in a theater.

*The Lion King is only 1 hour, 27 minutes long, and that's plenty of time! It even has musical numbers!

*The Emperor's New Groove: 1 hour, 18 minutes. A fantastic movie experience.

*I have mixed feelings about the movie, because I read spoilers ahead of time. (Are we still supposed to avoid sharing spoilers if the movie came out months ago?) Anyway, I think this is true of every MCU movie and so is not really a spoiler, but SOME THINGS HAPPEN THAT ARE SAD AND IT MADE ME SAD.

*But I'm still interested in watching it. Or at least starting it, because WOW it's very long.
marcicat: (blue footed bubi)
*I enjoyed it! It was what I was expecting when I watched 'Red Notice' -- deliberately over-the-top, didn't take itself too seriously, plot made zero sense at all, but it was funny and that worked for it.

*Some bonus points for making the setting a tiny island instead of "deep in the jungle of South America," and for the "treasure" reveal.

*This movie had a surprising amount of similarities with "Dora and the Lost City of Gold," which made me laugh a lot, and absolutely increased my enjoyment of both movies.

*Did Channing Tatum get a haircut before the final beach scene? I was so confused! Was it my imagination? Was he filming another movie? Was it a joke that I missed?

*Overall: fun; would be willing to watch again.

I guess?

Jul. 26th, 2022 06:13 am
marcicat: (iriomote_cat_warning)
I watched the Netflix movie 'Red Notice' over the weekend, because it was hot, and I skipped my usual 4th of July rewatch of 'Independence Day,' so I was feeling like watching something.

It was watchable? Mildly entertaining? I watched the whole thing, which is some sort of recommendation all on its own, I suppose.

Things I wanted to see which were disappointingly not present in this movie:

*More double cross shenanigans. If you're going to make it a thing, make it A Thing, you know? Where's the 'Ryan Reynolds was in league with Inspector Das the whole time' plot twist? Where's the 'both of them were lying about their fathers' reveal? Where's the 'Ed Sheehan was an undercover agent' B-plot?

*Literally any acknowledgement of how overused the 'secret Nazi loot' plot is.

*No, but seriously, where was the 'go big or go home' approach to plot lines that I was expecting? The whole thing was barely held together with sheer force of personality from the three stars. If you can't make the plot make sense, it could at least have been funny.
marcicat: (aquarius dreamsheep)
I enjoyed it very much! I like it much better when movies have some kind of magical component, because it keeps me from stressing out so much over the things that don't make sense. I can just be like, 'well, it's magic.' It's an AU!

Storyline: Relatable, and significantly less creepy than I'd feared when the internet told me 'the uncle that disappeared and that no one talks about is still living inside the walls of the house.' (Yikes.)

Songs: Sing-along-able, a key metric!

Overall: I'm glad I watched it AND would watch again!

(Favorite moment: Antonio telling the jaguar "Don't eat that," and thus proving that even when granted the magical ability to understand and speak with animals, you'll wind up spending a certain amount of time trying to get your cat to not eat things that will be bad for them.)

(PS: The internet tells me the jaguar is named Parce, which is Columbian slang short for parcero/parcera, and means 'friend.' Awwww!)
marcicat: (peace dreamsheep)
Muppet Treasure Island is one of those movies that's been kicking around on my 'movies I'd watch at some point because I seem them referenced a lot online.' [personal profile] starandrea and I watched it this week over the course of two nights, and WOW, that sure was something. I'm not really sure what? But definitely something.

The movie was released in 1996, so this morning I went checking to see what other movies that year produced.

*Independence Day: A personal classic. Glad I saw this when it was released, since that was apparently enough to build a nostalgia bond with it and enjoy it to this day.

*Space Jam: Never seen it, but after seeing Muppet Treasure Island it was not a surprise to see it on the '96 list.

*That Thing You Do: Did you know Charlize Theron was in this movie? I did not know that.

*The Hunchback of Notre Dame AND 101 Dalmations: two of the more disturbing animated kids movies I've seen, based purely on my recollection of seeing each of them exactly once and being freaked out.

*Star Trek First Contact: a movie I think about a lot, actually! It wasn't one of my favorites when I saw it (back in 1996, even), but when I did my 'rewatch all the Star Trek movies' thing a while ago* I liked it more.

[*Checked my journal, apparently it was 2017 and was more of a 'some of the Star Trek movies' thing). Hilariously, one of the things I wrote back then was: "I had my movies all confused, and I thought Insurrection was the one where they crashed the ship into the planet." And when I read that today, my first thought was, 'wait, Insurrection *isn't* the one where they crash the ship into the planet?']
marcicat: (heart dino)
There are So Many Things I would like to do today, and that it seems like I *should* do today, it's overwhelming. And it's tempting to just not do any of them, except I know I will feel better at the END of the day if I've made some sort of an effort.

HOWEVER! It is the FOURTH OF JULY, which means it must be time for my annual Independence Day rewatch! Lots of options for the rewatch this year, so it will be interesting to see how it fits into the day. Or tomorrow! Also part of the holiday!
marcicat: (tree with rainbow swirls)
Hey ho it's a Monday! Just watched the Netflix movie 'Space Sweepers' yesterday. (CW: So much child endangerment. And, uh, some death? V. sad death, but not in the 'wait is this like Magnificent Seven the movie' way even though it could have been. I read the wiki summary first to make sure it didn't end in a way I would think was horrible, which I always find is a nice way to reduce my stress about these things. Spoilers not always bad! Depends on what sort of viewing experience you are hoping to have!)

I liked that there were things that just never got explained. (wtf was happening with the villain's whole -- thing, with the veins? I felt like it was strongly implied that he was leeching life from other people after murdering them, but I was A-OK with that not being a major plot point.)

I am a sucker for kid!fic, so the movie pretty much worked for me on that alone. I liked that the ring got an explanation. I liked that the emergency channel recurred as a humor element and a plot driver. And I liked the plucky side characters who never got a backstory, because why not?
marcicat: (cat in snowy window)
I thought about watching it when it buzzed around tumblr in 2020, but the moment was never quite right. And then this week I wanted to read the furniture restoration AU, and I thought 'you know, it would be more fun to watch this story in my head if I knew which one of them was Joe and which was Nicky,' so I figured the moment must be right.

Some random thoughts in no particular order:

*The dreaming thing was an A+ fanfic trope. I loved that in general they didn't explain anything. 'Why are we like this? Why does it start? Why does it stop? Why do we dream about each others' lives until we meet and then not afterwards?' Eh, IDK. Who knows? That is some excellent fertile ground for fanfic. (And, I think, pretty realistic -- how would they know?)

*I feel like I read an article at one point that said the movie had to be more character-driven because it didn't have the budget to do things like big special effects explosions or car chases or actually showing Paris. That was excellent; I liked it; let's have more conversations about snacks in all movies.

*I haven't read any fanfic except the furniture restoration au at this point, but I would like to imagine there are at least eight million stories about all of them (including Quynh, of course!) happily chatting about snacks and going to therapy and enjoying their lives as a found family.
marcicat: boy dreaming a tiger dreaming a boy (tiger dreaming)
*I've been meaning to watch this since (::checks when the movie was released::) 2018, and this weekend I finally did.

*I liked it! The basic premise of 'characters in a small imaginary world leave to have adventures a bigger imaginary world' was much easier for my brain than Toy Story 2's 'toys leave the playroom and have adventures in the brick-space world.'

*I thought the message about friendships growing and changing over time was nicely done. (And, as with the first movie, there were a surprising amount of additional pings about healthy relationships in general. Way to go, Wreck It Ralph franchise, for encouraging personal growth and introspection!)

(*Having said that, many of the jokes didn't work for me, and I'm not sure I would enjoy watching the movie again. It was A Lot.)

*You know what I would like to see, though? A whole movie about the princesses, because they were by far my favorite part. They hang out together? They practice their skills together? They wear cozy pajamas? What's not to like?
marcicat: (hug it out)
Yesterday I re-watched 'Independence Day,' which holds up surprisingly well for a movie that came out in 1996. (Which was TWENTY FOUR YEARS AGO, what?!?!?)

Which means now it must be time to watch 'Independence Day 2,' which was a hot mess of a movie whose biggest achievement was probably that it pretended so hard that it didn't contradict the first one in So Many Ways. (Or, I mean, that the characters managed to say things like 'the aliens want to extract the Earth's molten core,' and look 100% serious about it.)

(The great thing about fanfic is that it makes movies like 'ID2: Even More Independence' so much more fun to watch! The first movie was a pretty self-contained story. The second movie was not -- it made no sense! It referenced things that were never explained! It left dozens of things unresolved by just never mentioning them again! Which is PERFECT for fanfic!)
marcicat: (black cat)
"The point is, I think it would be good -- for you to be in the world, around kids your own age. It might help."
"Help what?"
"...Honey, you're wearing a boa around your neck."
-Elena, Dora

"Well, be careful. That's what we want to say. I should have just said that."
"I think it would have been easier."
-Cole, Elena

"And if I don't talk to you, don't take it personal, okay? We're all just trying to survive high school. It's a horrible nightmare."
-Diego

"Am I a weirdo?"
"No more than the rest of us."
-Dora, Abuelita

"This best not be some wild goose chase."
"I sure hope it is. I love chasing wild geese. Until you catch one. Then it is not fun. A caught goose is just the meanest."
-Sammy, Dora

"Why did I take Mandarin? What are you guys saying?"
-Randy

"Oh look, Dora brought a knife on the field trip, everybody."
-Sammy

"I was just kidnapped, and chased by bad guys! And a fox, with a mask! Everyone saw that, right? Like, why does that fox need to remain anonymous? Who is gonna recognize one specific fox?"
-Sammy

"I mean, in a way, every place is the kind of place where people die."
"Okay, well, that's a bummer notion."
-Dora, Sammy

"Dora's my cousin. I can't just let her go off with some strange and anxious man we just met."
"Thank you, Diego."
-Diego, Alejandro (the strange & anxious man)

"She knows this monkey? Of course, she knows this monkey."
-Sammy

"Sometimes a song's the best idea. But not often. Oh, and don't tell anyone I did that."
-Sammy

"I did something epic! I'm basically a superhero!"
"Oh. Hi, Dora's parents."
"Okay, honey, who are all these people?"
-Randy, Sammy, Elena
marcicat: (snowbirds on a line)
I liked it! Way more than I thought I would!

Clearly I don't have a ton of coherent analysis thought up. Or any.

*I liked the deserter stormtroopers.

*I liked the hug. (Okay, all the hugging.)

*Hahaha good thing we didn't have to factor travel time into any of our plans, because that would be a wacky adherence to logic that these movies Just Don't Need.

*On the topic of logic: what?!?

*Love the totally fake promotions they give each other in the Resistance. ("Thank you, by the way.")

*DROIDS RIGHTS.
marcicat: (kashmir mountain goat)
(Not actually Star Wars day, which is May 4th, but the day on which I will see Star Wars!)

*I am excited! While I'm not at all confident that I will love the movie with all my heart, I am 100% confident that I will enjoy the viewing experience!

*My absolute favorite part of transformative fandom is that I now think of movies like Star Wars as filmed fanfic. (That's someone's Star Wars fanfic, with an enormous budget, showing up on the big screen! I'm astonished!)

*Me: "I can't believe that [all the things I wanted to see happen in the Star Wars universe] didn't happen in this movie!" (I mean, in any of the movies, really.)

*Also me: "I can't wait to see it anyway!"

*Because I remain impressed by people who produce these amazing fanworks, who are like 'here's a thousand word ramble in which I've taken the entire SW universe and fixed everything,' or 'here's twenty-thousand words of fic about the salt guy, I've ignored 95% of what happened in the movie universe.'

*I JUST LOVE FANDOM, OKAY.

*AND NOW WHEN SOMEONE WRITES FINN AND REY AND POE ALL HUGGING, I WILL HAVE A VISUAL MEMORY OF THIS EVENT HAPPENING AND I LOVE THAT TOO.

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