Recommend (or don't) a movie thread v2

[FireGilbert]

I watched these Christmas movies this year:


The Muppet Christmas Carol: Not only the best adaptation but probably my favourite Christmas movie that gets a watch every year. It perfectly blends the source material with muppet humour that is a lot of fun. Michael Caine is great. 10/10

Klaus: I loved this one. Has some beautiful animation while telling an engaging Santa origin story with interesting characters. Just a cute heartwarming film that deserves a spot in the yearly rotation. 10/10

Noelle: This is a safe Disney Christmas movie that has some enjoyable moments. Anna Kendrick is adorable despite kind of ripping off Buddy from Elf. Bill Hader as Santa is the highlight. It's fine. 6/10

Iron Man 3: I wanted something more action packed and I guess this is a Christmas movie. It actually works better as a Christmas movie, following a damaged man learning to be less selfish, before losing any resemblance to a holiday film in the over the top action packed third act. I wasn't a fan of this when I first watched an watching at Christmas doesn't change much. 5/10

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by Locke

If I'd been forced to watch that film at gunpoint I'd have begged them to pull the trigger.

Okay, so then if that's a 2/10, what's your zero?

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

Okay, so then if that's a 2/10, what's your zero?

I'd reckon a film about Trudeau joining an urban cyclist union would do it

[Locke]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

I'd reckon a film about Trudeau joining an urban cyclist union would do it

**Faaaaart Noise**

[Cheese]

Went to see the new Avatar flick.
As usual it's all about the visuals, really fantastic for the eye candy. Not much of a story, similar to the first 2, but I didn't go see it for the story. Overall pretty decent. 7/10

[SportsJunky]

We saw Weapons last night. Fun, creepy movie. My teenage daughter had her eyes closed for some of it. My boy loved it. It's good. Not really scary but a pretty well crafted movie.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Cheese

Went to see the new Avatar flick.
As usual it's all about the visuals, really fantastic for the eye candy. Not much of a story, similar to the first 2, but I didn't go see it for the story. Overall pretty decent. 7/10

This one was frustrating for me. I went in with the same mindset as the first 2 like you mention, but the first 2 hours actually setup an engaging story that's not the usual Avatar fare

Spoiler!

Evil Navi, Quaritch turning full native, Jake's family falling apart, human/navi hybrid. But then Cameron just gets lazy in the last hour and recreates the entire ending from the 2nd movie with a few bits from the 1st one sprinkled in. And the one great new character he has with the crazy Navi bitch gets completely sidelined into a henchman role. The visuals are still amazing, the final fight between Jake and Quaritch in the magnetic tornado is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in a theater, but the movie could have been so much better if Cameron had just taken the time to write a proper ending

To me the Avatar series really feels like what happened with Lucas and the Star Wars Prequel trilogy, Cameron is so big that no one challenges him and forces him to cut things and tighten the story. Avatar has a lot of building blocks of what could have been a great sci-fi world, but Cameron needed someone to help with the writing so he could just focus on the visuals

[woob]

Well rack up another terrible Christmas movie. We watched Family Switch last night. It started off decent, a typical switch movie. But then it got dumb and way over the top. Which is too bad, as had they kept it reigned in a bit more, I think it would have been pretty good. Even Ed Helms couldn’t save it.

Also watched Roofman, which we really enjoyed. Kirsten Dunst is amazing in it, and I really enjoyed Channing Tatum.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Run. Leave now. Go immediately. Get to a theater and watch Marty Supreme. Don't even read the rest of this post.

From Josh Safdie one half of the Safdie brothers, starring Timothee Chalamet in what I think is his best performance ever as Marty Mauser, a flamboyant and charming table tennis player in the 1950's based loosely on the real life person Marty Reisman.

I know as I write that you are all probably thinking "how can a movie about a table tennis player from decades ago be that good?", and if I'm being honest, that's what I was thinking going in. This movie has it all. A compelling character and performance by Chalamet, a chaotic yet plausible plot set to a frenetic pace at times, a series of interesting themes and moments of character development, a beautiful production design, and direction from Safdie that keeps the audience locked into each scene with rapt attention in what is a fairly long run time. This movie has some of the most compelling moments and scenes that I can remember seeing; moments that will stick in my memory for a very long time.

This is easily the best movie I've seen in the last 10 years. It is complex and also complete. There isn't a thing about it I would change.

10/10. Must watch.

[trackercowe]

So I watched 91 "new" movies in theatres in 2025. I haven't seen Marty Supreme, The Housemaid, Bugonia, Hamnet and a few others. I'm also not counting Netflix, Amazon, or movies I saw streaming. I also counted The Whole Bloody Affair as a new release, and Shin Godzilla since I believe it was never released in North America. I decided to make a list, best to worst...

Spoiler!

Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair 9.5
Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle 9
Sinners 9
Weapons 9
F1 8.5
One Battle After Another 8.5
The Long Walk 8.5
Warfare 8.5
Black Bag 8
Bring Her Back 8
Chainsaw Man 8
Companion 8
Frankenstein 8
Silent Night, Deadly Night 8
The Fantastic Four: First Steps 8
The Naked Gun 8
Together 8
Wake up Dead Man 8
28 Years Later 7.5
Caught Stealing 7.5
Freaky Tales 7.5
Mickey 17 7.5
Nuremberg 7.5
Predator: Badlands 7.5
Shin Godzilla 7.5
Superman 7.5
The Brutalist 7.5
The Monkey 7.5
The Rule of Jenny Pen 7.5
Thunderbolts 7.5
Attack on Titan the Movie: The Last Attack 7
Ballerina 7
Dangerous Animals 7
Eddington 7
Heart Eyes 7
How to Drain Your Dragon 7
Life of Chuck 7
Mission Impossibe - The Final Reckoning 7
Novocaine 7
Penguin Lessons 7
Presence 7
Relay 7
Sisu: Road to Revenge 7
The Toxic Avenger 7
Bone Lake 6.5
Eternity 6.5
Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants 6.5
Nobody 2 6.5
Roofman 6.5
Splitsville 6.5
The Black Phone 2 6.5
Drop 6
Good Boy 6
Karate Kid: Legends 6
Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy 6
Smashing Machine 6
Song Sung Blue 6
The Amateur 6
The Luckiest Man in America 6
Tron: Ares 6
A Working Man 5.5
Christy 5.5
Dream Eater 5.5
Jurassic World: Rebirth 5.5
Shelby Oaks 5.5
The Conjuring: Last Rites 5.5
Anaconda 5
Avatar: Fire and Ash 5
Den of Thieves: Pantera 5
Keeper 5
Last Breath 5
Now You See Me: Now You Don't 5
The Home 5
The Running Man 5
Wolf Man 5
Captain America: Brave New World 4.5
Death of a Unicorn 4.5
Five Nights at Freddy's 2 4.5
Until Dawn 4.5
Customs Frontline 4
Flight Risk 4
Honey Don't 4
Bambi: The Reckoning 3.5
Better Man 3.5
Love Hurts 3.5
Him 3
I Know What You Did Last Summer 3
M3gan 2.0 3
The Strangers - Chapter 2 3
Woman in the Yard 3
The Alto Knights 2.5

[AC]

My top 10 of 2025:
1. No Other Choice
2. One Battle After Another
3. Bugonia
4. Sinners
5. Bring Her Back
6. Alpha
7. Weapons
8. Reflection in a Dead Diamond
9. The Ugly Stepsister
10. It Was Just an Accident

Still many I want to check out that might change the list ultimately.

[trackercowe]

I want to see No Other Choice, but it hasn't been released in Edmonton yet. Love Park Chan-wook's previous work, and we all know Byun Hun is a terrific actor. I could see it taking my #1 spot. I laughed at this review off Letterboxd.

Review by
Sydney��
★★★★½ 30
I lost my job because of Elon Musk recently (sometimes referred to as being ‘doge-d’) and I’m glad Park Chan-wook gave me some new ideas for how to deal with that <3

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Watching Chalamet play a sociopath relentlessly pushing his luck and cause to the brink for for 2.5 hours was captivating.

Strange to say about a table tennis film but that was a frenetic ride.

The opening credits bit was really funny but in hindsight fits thematically with the whole film.

I loved how brutally real it kept things, kind of un-hollywood in some aspects. The seas never miraculously part for the protagonist like you see in most movie third acts. It's mainly flying by the seat of his pants and putting everything on the line for a radical belief in something, with nothing off the table to progress things towards that end. Realistic motivations and character flaws and reckless decisions with anxiety-inducing consequences.

Lord I dislike Kevin O'Leary, and he basically played himself but the part was well cast for that reason.

I will put out the caveat that this was a pretty bad period piece. A lot of the back and forth between characters felt plucked out of present day dialogue and certainly would've been out of place for america in the '50s. That aside, it was a great movie. A true drama.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Originally Posted by AC

My top 10 of 2025:
1. No Other Choice
2. One Battle After Another
3. Bugonia
4. Sinners
5. Bring Her Back
6. Alpha
7. Weapons
8. Reflection in a Dead Diamond
9. The Ugly Stepsister
10. It Was Just an Accident

Still many I want to check out that might change the list ultimately.

Where did you manage to catch No Other Choice? Its not even playing here yet locally.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by TrentCrimmIndependent

Where did you manage to catch No Other Choice? Its not even playing here yet locally.

It played at CIFF... and on the high seas.

[AC]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

It played at CIFF... and on the high seas.

Yeah I found a Korean leak online.

He's my favourite director so I couldn't resist watching it ASAP.
I'll see it again in theatres when possible.

[n00berdeau]

I think if you have Sinners and One Battle After Another in your top 5 you might want to re-examine things.

One Battle After Another in particular is quite bad. And it's s about 20-30 IQ points lower than PT Anderson's other films. Not sure why he decided to dumb things down, but it also seems to promote left wing political violence.
Sinners is pretty bad too, and like a lot of people have said, is just a rehash of From dusk Till Dawn, but under the guise of celebrating black music.
And of course, both have a weird violent racist massacre scene shoehorned in. This is becomming quite common in Hollywood, it started with inglorious Bastards and Kingsmen, then Logan, Prey, and now these two. I'm sure there's more, but I dont watch much mov ies these days, because they're mostly terrible.
Eddington, while not great, was much better than both. I'm not really a fan of Ari Aster, but it Eddington was much more interesting.

[DownInFlames]

OBaA does not promote left wing violence. It satirizes it, just as it satirizes white supremacy. Get your head out of Tucker Carlson's ass.


And Sinners isn't racist. They're not killing random white people. Jesus it's insane that people actually think this way.


Anyone who doesn't like watching Nazis get killed is probably a Nazi in secret.

[woob]

Originally Posted by n00berdeau

I think if you have Sinners and One Battle After Another in your top 5 you might want to re-examine things.

One Battle After Another in particular is quite bad. And it's s about 20-30 IQ points lower than PT Anderson's other films. Not sure why he decided to dumb things down, but it also seems to promote left wing political violence.
Sinners is pretty bad too, and like a lot of people have said, is just a rehash of From dusk Till Dawn, but under the guise of celebrating black music.
And of course, both have a weird violent racist massacre scene shoehorned in. This is becomming quite common in Hollywood, it started with inglorious Bastards and Kingsmen, then Logan, Prey, and now these two. I'm sure there's more, but I dont watch much mov ies these days, because they're mostly terrible.
Eddington, while not great, was much better than both. I'm not really a fan of Ari Aster, but it Eddington was much more interesting.

2/10 would not read again.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by woob

2/10 would not read again.

If that's your 2/10, what's your 0/10?