I’ll start: “Happy Death Day”
Osmosis Jones.
A half-and-half cartoon and live action film with Chris Rock as the titular character from the late-90s/early-00s. The movie was a flop, but I think it had more to do with lousy marketing. It was actually pretty good and a fun way to look at how things affect the human body.
David Hyde Pierce as the enormous Pill was a great choice, and Bill Murray was hilarious.
It was fantastic. The spin-off show was good too
Around the time this came out, I, having had no idea about the movie or its premise, wrote a story that was along similar lines in creative writing. Specifically, it featured the immune system and other cells as characters and whatnot.
I was accused of ripping off the idea.
And Laurence Fishburne as Thrax. He was pretty horrifying when he would let loose and make people explode.
I love this movie!
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Johnny Depp fucking carries that franchise.
He nailed Jack sparrow so damn hard I can’t picture anyone else in that role. It sets the pace of the movie too.
He not only nailed it so hard no one else can play the role, he nailed it so hard he became synonymous with the role.
I remember people thinking he was crazy when he first stepped into the role and was swaying and shit.
The balls it took to fully immerse yourself like that. Paid off in spades.
The first step off the boat sets the pace.
The first one was fairly clever in that they had probably 50 years of collective ideas and inspiration to work off of. It’s a story that needed to push no boundaries and hold to established tropes, with no expectations because it was a ride: perfect for Disney.
Now when Disney gets their hands on an established franchise full of expectations…
The first one was my obsession when it came out in dvd
Wait…the movie is based on the ride, not the other way around?
They updated the ride after the movies, so… It’s kind of circular at this point.
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I just think of it as a live action Monkey Island.
Does that actually work? I have only played the 1st 20 minutes of Monkey Island lol
They have a lot of similarities.
According to wikipedia, Monkey Island was inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and Pirates of the Caribbean was rumored to be based on a cancelled script for a Monkey Island movie.
Doom 2005 wasn’t bad.
The FPS sequence made me go
It was the best part of the entire movie.
It was short, but made sitting through the stupid names and extra chromosome shit worth it.
You should check out the movie Hardcore Henry 😉
Oooohhhh, I watched that back then and totally forgot that that movie was even a thing. I think I need to rewatch it
Star Trek First Conact
I disagree. This both looked and was awesome.
Exactly. It was one of my top three ST movies, and by all accounts. Ebert reviewed it positively, as one of the best of the franchise.
I wonder why they put it in the “looks like it’d suck” category?
Haters gonna find a way to hate? 🤷♂️
Well, by including it they imply they liked it, so I’m guessing not a hater. Just curious why they said it “looked like it would be bad”.
I was assuming they were knee-jerk reacting like “It’s Star Trek, so it must be terrible,” and then found out otherwise. I could be wrong though.
As a Trekkie it looked awesome to me but to my civilian friends it looked like made for TV garbage, then they saw it and loved it
I think people are missing that this movie is spelled differently than “Star Trek First Contact”.
Star Trek First CONACT was a cheap, B-movie knock-off straight to DVD movie that should have sucked, but didnt.
Angela Lansbury was not nominated for an Oscar for her preformance as the Captain, but Brooke Shields notably was also in the movie as an alien.
Wait, what are you saying. There is.a.dooferent movie named “first conact”? (Google didn’t help me)
Mile 22. Died at the box office and I’d heard nothing but bad things about it. Saw a DVD at the library and a stranger suggested it to me.
Seriously good thriller with action, intrigue, and some great acting.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is always a good mention.
It’s a fun and very accessible movie.
This movie took me completely by surprise by how good it was. I feel like you could tell everyone involved had experience playing TTRPGs, from the director, to the writer(s), all the way down to the catering crew!
Although the interviews with the cast are hilarious just because Hugh Grant doesn’t have a single clue about DnD but also couldn’t give a single fuck about it.
Should he need to? He’s an actor. He can pretend to know what he is doing.
No, of course not. But it’s funny how he openly admits to his ignorance. He still gives a great performance and was obviously very well liked by the rest of the cast.
I don’t rewatch movies unless its been a few years and I really enjoyed.
Ive provably watched that movie 10x by now. Jarnathan would know what I’m saying if he were here.
Absolutely loved that movie. It’s mixture of slapstick humor and melodrama are a perfect representation of actual D&D.
I just went and watched it for the first time because of this message. FANTASTIC movie! Excellent recommendation!
I may be biased, as an RPG nerd, but man, they hit all the notes so damn well. That was such a good movie.
Which is precisely the problem: I am not, and not only was I mildly bored, I also found the narrative to be just plain incoherent. It was obvious to me the story was driven by some Reference Guide on RPG stuff, and not on captivating an audience.
I guess it hit every nail on the head. That’s all it hit, actually.
Yeah, the entire story follows the major beats of a group of people playing DND. Everything that happens would be familiar to a player. Your party always gets captured and thrown in a prison from where you must escape. Dungeon Masters (the people running the game) will frequently introduce an overpowered “helper” NPC to move the party along in the right direction, but that character won’t engage in the fights. Parties will find several puzzles that the DM has spent hours creating, only for the party to use some magic or tool in a creative way to bypass the entire puzzle.
To someone expecting standard fantasy storytelling, it’s jarring and weird. The anachronistic language, the character decisions that don’t make sense, the magic artifacts that seem to just happen to be exactly what the party needs in the moment, it’s all stuff that would happen around a table in someone’s basement. It helps to think of each character as a regular person you know today playing a game where they make all the decisions for the character. Convenient contrivances or frustrating failures are the DM having fun with the story. Sometimes the dice rolls 20 and you do something miraculous, and sometimes you roll a 1, trip over a pebble and stab yourself in the face.
You don’t have to be a dnd player to enjoy the movie, but you do need to understand the lens through which you’re watching it. Otherwise, the tone and pacing seem really strange.
I sometimes like to pride myself on my ability to take a different viewpoint, but today it’s absolutely failing me, lol. I really thought this was a movie everyone could at least enjoy.
I guess it hit every nail on the head. That’s all it hit, actually.
That’s a fascinating statement. Could you elaborate a bit?
Not much to it outside of trying to convey “perfect by RPG standards, tropes and parameters (probably)”, but failed to “hit” me in any way.
Watching it, I was expecting to see something akin to a Franchise movie, where you may miss a bit or two if you’re not in on all the lore. But I was also expecting true entertainment with striking visuals, gripping storytelling, stuff like that
Imagine watching a spy movie. 20% in you have adversarial hierarchy, 30% in the car chase, 66% in the romantic pause, 80% in the unexpected traitor, 95% in the final hand-to-hand fight to avert the end of the universe or whatever… And it’s boring, but everybody around you is telling you it was so great because it’s got it all, the car chase the traitor the, the.
Doesn’t make a good movie.
On the contrary, the best part about it is that it’s not a compilation of references the audience is supposed to already know about. It’s just a fun adventure movie. The reason the RPG crowd sing it praises is that in addition, if you know how to read it, the actual plot is “girlfriend is curious about what we’re all doing every Tuesday evening”
I never played d&d or any games of that style, and probably missed out on a bunch of the catered moments, but I still enjoyed it very much
It’s very much worth watching the older dnd movies just to see how amazingly bad they were(i still like the first one they did but acknowledge how bad it is)
Agreed. Also doesn’t hurt that I enjoyed Pine when he played Kirk
I thought it might be a stupid movie to hate watch but I enjoyed it. The bread crumb trail quest line type of movie scratched the itch for me.
One of the best movies of the year for me, and I was expecting hot garbage.
It had a lot of heart and you could almost “feel” the good/bad dice rolls happening.
The Paladin had me in stitches
Good call! Wife and I watched that one on a whim, thinking it would be a good “bad” movie to watch while having a few drinks and were pleasantly surprised!
You probably need be at least familiar with RPG/fantasy tropes to fully enjoy it, but it definitely felt like it came from a place of love and self-awareness, rather than the cynical cash-grab I was expecting.
I loved Hudson Hawk. The story was bonkers, the musical numbers were entertaining and had a great ending.
Mr hawk I got your stamps!
Gooood Yogi!
I’m giving away my age, but Benny & Joon. A story about two mentally ill people falling in love, and the script isn’t even that great, but all the actors really sell it and it is such a quirky heart warming and funny movie.
Where my fellow Spokane peeps?
Yes! One of my most favorite Johnny Depp roles.
“The Adventures Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension” 1984
Great script, great cast, young Johnathan Lithgow and Christopher Llyod, Peter Weller in one of his best rolls, and bonus Jeff Goldblum as they new guy.
Whole thing is still a perfect package, looking like a B movie you’d totally skip.
One of my all time favorites, so quirky
Such a great movie!
I got this at a DragonCon. They did a pre-release showing and gave these out to the audience.
Jealous!
I’m lucky it’s survived so long. I got it in HS, and in between:
- Did a tour in the Army
- Went to college
- Lived in Germany
- Have moved over a half dozen times
So many valued possessions have gone missing in that time, due to roommates and sheer carelessness, it’s a minor miracle it’s still with me. The only original possession I have that’s older is a Bloom County Opus plushy that I got in junior high.
That’s a real treasure! Very nice.
I like to think of it as a sci-fi movie sequel/equivalent to the short story (but not the movie) “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.”
Thank you. I still watch the end credits from time to time. Brings back these sweet eighties memories!
Although to me it didn’t look like it would suck, Hellboy: The Crooked Man got panned by critics, but it was fantastic.
Yeah I just watched it and really enjoyed it.
The critics on this over were pretty funny to me.
“They made me watch another Hellboy film, and it’s a Hellboy film, and I’m angry.”
Some of those critics need to learn when to call in sick.
It’s a great Hellboy film. Haha.
Arguably the most Hellboy Hellboy film.
Warrior with tom Hardy/joel edgarton/nick nolte. Marketed as a shitty MMA cash grab. It’s fantastic.
I was surprised at this movie, too. I think it was one of Tom Hardy’s early movies, so it’s pretty unknown.
I love this movie, but the audio mix kills me. One minute you are struggling to hear characters speaking and then your eardrums get blown out when they cut to the next fight starting. I do have tinnitus so I may be biased a bit.
That’s a fair point. The movie needs a basic compressor pass lol
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and Renfield were absolutely amazing and I think they fit the bill
I’ll give you the first one, way better than it had any right to be. 2nd was ok.
For the direct sequel of the 1931 Dracula movie starring Nicholas Cage in a toxic boss/employee relationship in a gory B movie-esque film, I think it was pretty amazing !
Any movie where Cage “acts” mentally unstable is going to be the best fucking movie that year. I still can’t get over his role in Color Out of Space.
Nothing will ever beat Face/Off when he portrays Travolta’s character pretending to be him.
Renfield
I’m perpertually locked in Cage but both my s/o and myself passed out on two seperate watch attempts 🫠
The Long Kiss Goodnight https://imdb.com/title/tt0116908
Geena Davis and Samuel L Jackson. He said in 2019 that it was his favorite role. It was released after a flop for Davis and director Renny Harlin (then her husband), and may have had poor press related to that.
It has an unlikely hero, plenty of action sequences, some fun performances (I had to pause it after a funny line from Brian Cox cracked me up), and heart. Solidly entertaining. But low expectations might help.
I watched this movie when I was in middle school and thought it was badass. I completely forgot about it until your mention and now I gotta see if it holds up. All I remember is that it takes place in winter and Samuel L. says "Pussy is pussy " at some point.
It holds up. Geena Davis is a straight up bad-ass boss mutha fucka!
Hilarious!
Tap for spoiler
“You’re gonna die screaming and I’m gonna watch” will never not be a badass line, and “I propose that whatever he is trying to dislodge is either gone for good or there to stay” will never stop amusing me.
I wouldn’t say those are definitely the best lines in the movie, but probably top 5, definitely top 10.
Spoiler
But that first line only gets better when she mows him down and punctuates it with, “Die screaming, motherfucker.”
That movie is so good, regardless expectations. One of my absolute favorites.
Reanimator
Combs just brings a captivating presence wherever he goes!
Not sure if this exactly fits the assignment, but most people think Silent Hill (first one) was a garbage movie that made no sense. And it was if you never played the games. If you did play the games though, you can see the movie is incredibly faithful to the atmosphere. They used a lot of the OST by Akira Yamaoka too, which is an amazing soundtrack. I really liked the acting as well (except for the little kid, but it’s rare to find convincing child actors anyway). Monster design was great. I think they combined cg and practical effects so it made some things a lot more convincing.
I liked the movie when it came out and can still enjoy it today. I think the monsters are some of the creepiest in any horror movie. The janitor scene gives me nightmares. However, there was a lot of fan service that didn’t need to be included. Yes Pyramid Head is the most recognizable character in the series, but he really served no purpose being in the movie. Also, the design of the nurses being “sexy” doesn’t make sense. They were designed that way for James in the second game. That was how he saw them. I think they did a really good job for what they managed to pull off from that movie though. I hope they do well with the new one.
I generally agree, but the sexy nurse critique is hard to take honestly. Even the devs themselves reused the sexy nurse in future games because it became so iconic, even though they didn’t make sense for those protagonists necessarily.
I was excited for that movie, and I think yeah they nailed the atmosphere. Ended up not liking it at all, though
Agreed on Silent Hill. Amazing movie. Weird that people thought it was confusing? I saw that movie as a young kid, having never played the games, and it made perfect sense… idk how anyone can watch that and not understand what’s going on. The movie had a very simple plot lol.
