As for Captain Marvel, I haven't seen it yet, and I am interested, but thanks to the reviews I'll be going in with low expectations and I'll probably end up liking it a lot.
I tend to find I often go against the grain.
I just saw it this weekend and that was more or less my response, though I'm not sure I'd say I liked it "a lot". Then again, I'm not entirely sure I'd say I didn't. 
I guess the best way to describe it is that the movie kept me entertained and interested the entire time, which is honestly more than I can say about many of the recent Marvel movies. However, I wouldn't say I was engaged emotionally, not the way I want to be in a really good movie. I still cheer at several moments in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (admittedly my favorite movie, not just Marvel movie), but even watching Captain Marvel for the first time I never really did that.
I do have a couple of gripes, which are fairly significant spoilers:
Spoiler
1) I thought the "reveal" of how Nick Fury lost his eye was completely underwhelming. I'd prefer not to know over having it be that. Plus, well, it doesn't really mesh well with what he says in Winter Soldier about it: "The last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye." Maybe he was lying then to sell his point to Cap, but still.
2) I could feel the corner the writers were trying to write themselves out of at the end of the movie, after the Accusers showed up. I feel like they knew that justifying Captain Marvel fighting them off without making her too overpowered was nearly impossible, so the one warhead she turns around completely destroys all the others, and the Accusers decide to run away and never (never?!) return after they see what she can do.
2) I could feel the corner the writers were trying to write themselves out of at the end of the movie, after the Accusers showed up. I feel like they knew that justifying Captain Marvel fighting them off without making her too overpowered was nearly impossible, so the one warhead she turns around completely destroys all the others, and the Accusers decide to run away and never (never?!) return after they see what she can do.
For those who might want to see it because Avengers: Endgame is coming out so soon:
N-Web sis of stardf, _Rillian_, & jerenda
Proud to be Sirya the Madcap Siren
Posted : March 18, 2019 10:24 am
FK, if you're a fan of the first HtTYD then I would say you should see the third one just for the ending. Wait for it on DVD, but don't miss it altogether.
Captain Marvel: it was entertaining, but not emotionally engaging, as you say. As to the gripes:
Spoiler
the eye didn't bug me, but it seemed a really obvious way to go; in a way it would have been funnier if we thought that's what might happen (but didn't). I don't think I ever fully trusted what Fury said (appropriately, perhaps) so I wan't invested in the idea of a dramatic backstory.
For the ending: yes. It all felt too easy.
But that has reminded me about something that bugged me throughout the film - in Thor it's very much presented that Thor is the first alien that Coulson (at least) and possibly SHIELD have had contact with. Fury even says something to that effect in the first Avengers movie (not that he's entirely to be trusted ... ) I can accept that the organisation would keep its secrets (especially given the whole Hydra thing) but Coulson? I don't envy the writers having to keep all that's happened in the MCU in mind, however.
For the ending: yes. It all felt too easy.
But that has reminded me about something that bugged me throughout the film - in Thor it's very much presented that Thor is the first alien that Coulson (at least) and possibly SHIELD have had contact with. Fury even says something to that effect in the first Avengers movie (not that he's entirely to be trusted ... ) I can accept that the organisation would keep its secrets (especially given the whole Hydra thing) but Coulson? I don't envy the writers having to keep all that's happened in the MCU in mind, however.
I hope that Endgame develops Captain Marvel a bit more. Though it won't be easy to do in a movie jammed with characters!
Posted : April 2, 2019 2:08 am
I believe the pressure of having to mesh a character's story into the wider "Marvel Universe" for the sole benefit of The Avengers series really debilitates the story development of stand-alone movies. I think they could be so much better if they only had to worry about the context of their own films. Oh well.
I finally got to watch Savings Mr. Banks the other night. I've been wanting to watch it for the longest time. And it was even better than I expected! Man, I did not expect to cry during that movie. Parts of it hit me pretty hard. Emma Thompson should have been nominated for an Oscar. I had only one complaint:
"Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you!"
- Dr. Seuss
Posted : April 3, 2019 6:50 pm
I was at the library yesterday and picked up The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler which I know several forum members have recommended it in the past. I watched it with one of my sisters last night, the story was fascinating and it seemed very well made.
SnowAngel
Christ is King.
Posted : April 10, 2019 10:47 am
Oooh, good, SnowAngel. 
While so much more could be told of Irena's story, the film is a good summary, at least. Well done; very moving. What a story! What a brave, brave young lady!
Signature by Narnian_Badger, thanks! (2013)
7,237 posts from Forum 1.0
Posted : April 10, 2019 11:03 am
This week my sisters and I watched several shorter classic films: The Patient In Room 18 (1938), Mystery House (1938), and Dust Be My Destiny (1939). The first two films starred a young Ann Sheridan and were fun little mystery films that we very much enjoyed watching. Dust Be My Destiny starred John Garfield and Priscilla Lane in their third film together, having seen their first film together Four Daughters, I enjoyed not only the plot of Dust Be My Destiny, but also their happy ending.
Going through our family movie collection trying to remove some of the movies we never watch anymore and I found The Right Stuff which we have not watched even though it has been the shelf for years. Has anyone seen it and would teenagers enjoy it? I'm thinking about watching it some time soon as change of pace from mystery films and Hallmark movies.
SnowAngel
Christ is King.
Posted : April 20, 2019 11:20 am
I saw Avengers: Endgame yesterday and, I'm still trying to process everything. Can't really talk about this movie without going into spoilers. So my vary brief not spolier thoughts are, overall it's a good, but not great movie, and a pretty satisfying conclusion to this chapter of the MCU.(Though part of me wishes it was the conclusion to the MCU as a whole.)
So here are my unorganized assorted spolier thoughts.
Spoiler
I thought the time travel was well executed, for the most part. I was a little nervous about time travel being used because it's almost always messy and falls apart of you think about for a few minutes. Overall I thought the time travel plot was fine. Revisiting the events of previous movies was entertaining, and I appreciated how they did it without rewriting the events of the those movies. (That is if I understand the time travel rules correctly.)
I wasn't expecting the 5-year time jump. I think it worked for what they did with the original Avengers, but it's kind of awkward that all the characters that got brought back from the snap just have 5 years missing from they're lives.
Probably my biggest grip with the movie was the humor. I know that's kind of a common complaint about the MCU for some people, but usually I don't feel that way, and to some extent I've even been a defender of the comedy in these films films. But, a lot of the humor in this just fell completely flat for me (for example the Captain America butt joke when they travel back the events first Avengers film.) It didn't ruin the movie for my overall, but it was a little disappointing in a movie like this.
The final battle is 30-40 minutes of pure unadulterated fan-serves which I didn't mind, in fact I loved almost every second of it. (Except for the 'Girl Power' ™ shot which felt like political pandering to me, but whatever.) But still, seeing Cap use Mjolnir was amazing and I'll admit when the portals open and all the heros united and Cap finally said "Avengers! Assemble." Made me choke up a little. Normally I'm not a huge fan of excessive fan-serves, but at this point I think Marvel earned it.
Overall I liked what they did with Thor, though it definitely wasn't a direction I saw them going in. Hulk was, interesting. I like the idea of Hulk and Banner being able to coexist, and I think it works well if Hulk is sort of a manifestation of Bruce's dark side, which is how the first two Avenger films played it. But, in Thor: Ragnarok and Infinity War played it's like they where two separate people sharing the same body, so it's gets a little muddled for me.
I thought Natasha's death worked really well. I've seen a lot of people complaining about it online, but I don't see any problem with it. I thought it was kind of touching and poetic how, Clint saved her from the life of being a cold-blooded killer and now she got to return the favor, and you know, also sacrifice herself to help save everyone else.
Tony and Steve are by far my favorite characters in the series, so while I'm really sad to see them go, I found the conclusions to both of their stories pretty satisfying. Tony being willing to make the ultimate sacrifice felt like a nice payoff to his arc dating all the way back to Iron Man. Steve getting to have a finally have his dance with Peggy and live a full life with her (Even though I'm not sure it makes sense with how the time travel works in this movie) was great.
Posted : April 27, 2019 1:28 pm
Cinemas here seem to be overstocked with comic book characters, so I went to a local screening in a suburb I hadn't seen before. It allowed me to discover a couple of local theatres, which I can get to easily by bus.
The film I did see was "Red Joan", starring Dame Judi Dench as a woman in her 80s accused of spying during WW2. It was simply and effectively cut between Judi's scenes and the flashback scenes showing the story in two time periods.
Based on a true story, if you are interested in WW2,spying, communism, and N-bomb.
[there are themes of suicide as well as mild sex scenes,so it's R12 here]
There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again) stood Aslan himself.
"...when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."
Posted : April 28, 2019 5:59 am
So I finally saw Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame. I should note I'm not generally a big Marvel fan but I tend to see most of the movies as my boyfriend is a huge fan and drags me to the theater. 
Captain Marvel
Non-Spoiler quick-review: Extremely underwhelming + nonsensical.
Spoiler-y review:
Avengers: Endgame
Non-spoiler quick-review: Pretty good. Slightly better than Infinity War.
Spoiler-y review:
"Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you!"
- Dr. Seuss
Posted : April 30, 2019 6:34 pm
Avengers:Endgame was good. I enjoyed it a lot. I think it's the best reaction I've had to an Avengers movie (at first watch). I liked it more than Infinity War too, I think because that movie had such a focus on Thanos. This film is very much about the Avengers.
Spoiler
There is a lot that happened that normally would really bug me, but I've been pretty forgiving because I enjoyed it so much.
I thought the time travel was nonsense. When they started dissing other time travel movies I hoped they'd come up with a clever way to do something different, but I still don't understand what on earth they were talking about. I get the "the future is your past, it can't change" thing but then there are no consequences whatsoever. Cap would know about Hydra (plus every other major world event), yet doesn't say anything? How did he spend a life with Peggy, who spends her whole life at SHIELD, and yet NO ONE knows there is a second Steve Rogers kicking around? How does none of this create a plethora of alternate universes? However, I don't care as much as I should. I hope they'll sort some of it out in the future (Loki) but other than that I'm all right with leaving it as is.
Part of me expected it to pick up in tone right away, and go from the aftermath of the snap to cheerfulness quickly. I think the film did a good job of showing things getting worse and worse without becoming depressing while showing the full consequences of what had happened. The five year gap surprised me too. It worked really well for showing the development of the characters left behind, but I did wonder about all the people who'd disappeared while on aeroplanes or in cars who suddenly came back ... or whose husbands/wives had remarried ... there were a lot of unanswered questions here.
I think my favourite part of the movie was Cap's "Hail Hydra", which was perfect. Generally all the interaction with people in the past was great. I enjoyed seeing Tony and his father meet in a positive way. Cap seeing Peggy through the glass was heartbreaking.
Thor disappointed me. New Asgard was hilarious (especially as it's a little harbour in Scotland, not all that far from me) and I liked how he'd let himself go - at least at first. But he didn't really change in attitude through the film. Though I know a lot of people think Ragnarok 'saved' the character, I love Thor's character arc in the first movie when he turns from a massive jerk into a sacrificial leader. Endgame seemed to get rid of all that - plus his arc in Ragnarok, which was good too.
I didn't like Bruce either! I was excited when the Ancient One astral projects him out of the Hulk because I thought there'd be some development there, but then that didn't happen. I guess my problem with Thor and Bruce/Hulk through this movie is that they didn't develop at all. And I can say the same for Captain Marvel. Here I was hoping this film would sort out her character development ... it didn't. At all. So disappointing.
Clint and Natasha were great. I thought it was kind of obvious how it would go when they went for the soul stone, but it was done very well. Having Clint open the movie was a great move.
Tony and Steve had all the best parts. I was thrilled to see Tony settle down - what a way to wrap up the "So you're a man who has everything - and nothing" comment from Yinsen in the first Iron Man film. I'm gutted he died, but what a way to go.
There are so many more things I could write about, but I think I should stop. I liked it a lot, it was fun, and what an ending to 11 years of films!
Posted : May 1, 2019 10:47 pm
@AJAiken, I can address your first concern! Not sure if it will be satisfactory (lol) but....
(Note - Avenger's:Endgame spoiler)
"Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you!"
- Dr. Seuss
Posted : May 3, 2019 10:51 am
mm1991, that makes more sense. Slightly. Thanks! I clearly missed that. Maybe I need to watch it again ...
On a slightly different note, I watched Pixels last night. I wasn't expecting much and so enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. The premise of arcade games pixellating the world is great (see the original short the feature's based on) but, unfortunately, the film doesn't take that concept much further. Aliens misunderstanding human entertainment is done much more clearly in Galaxy Quest. I also thought it was far too crude - the film felt like it was aiming for PG, but several 'jokes' pushed it into a 12. However, I liked Kevin James as the rather hapless President and I thought him being childhood friends with Adam Sandler's character was a good way to bring the 'nobody' into the crisis early on.
Posted : May 4, 2019 12:03 am
So I saw Tolkien and, it was more or less exactly what I thought it would be based off the trailers: A generic schmaltzy biopic.
Just as a standalone movie it's fine, I guess. The directing and cinematography are decent, and the acting is pretty good for the most part. But the writing is really were the movie falls short for me. There are maybe one or two well done scenes, but I thought the majority of the writing is vary cliche, uninspired, and honesty really boring.
The story and basically every character felt flat and uninteresting (which is kind of impressive, how do you manage to make J. R. R Tolkien uninteresting?) Tolkien and Edith's romance was alright, if a bit generic, the relationship between him and his childhood friends was okay. You get a decent sense of the bond he had with them, though even knowing what their names were I had trouble telling them apart.
The movie also feels jumbled and rushed. It jumps around from Tolkien's childhood, to his school days, to his time in WW1 and nothing really gets the time it needs and almost everything feels rushed through. For example
Spoiler
the death of Tolkien's mother and the effect it had on him
Overall, while it's not a terrible movie, I think it's a very mediocre and forgettable one.
Posted : May 15, 2019 12:36 pm
Thanks for this, narnia fan 7. I have had not much desire to see Tolkien, and this, along with reviews from other folk I also respect, confirms my 'inkling' about this film. I may watch it when it comes out on DVD, but I am not even sure of that.
Apollo 11 was released on DVD/Blu-ray this week, and I want to pick up our copy. We have only heard great things about this docu movie.
Signature by Narnian_Badger, thanks! (2013)
7,237 posts from Forum 1.0
Posted : May 15, 2019 12:42 pm
Thank you for posting about Apollo 11, Jo. I had checked the library catalog for it a few weeks ago and it wasn't listed yet. Check again after seeing your post, it's on order and I was able to put hold on it, fourth in the queue.
My mom, sisters, and I have been enjoying the newest mysteries on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries. We are really liking the development in Hailey Dean series, as with the previous movies in the series Nancy Grace has had terrific cameos. And can't go wrong with more Fincher in movies. 
SnowAngel
Christ is King.
Posted : May 16, 2019 1:48 pm
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