Let's go to the Theaters OT for 2025!

As I was saying, what's your most anticipated movies your looking forward to this new year of 2025?

Me:

• (James Gunn) Superman
• Jurassic world Rebirth
• Sinners
• Captain America: Brave New World
• Megan 2.0
• Avatar: Fire and Ash

Not sure about Minecraft, might wait for it to be on Netflix I guess.

I'll go see 28 years Later in the theaters.

Mission Impossible on that list.

There is no movie I know about that I look forward to. I assume all those movies in the list will be terrible, ok at best.

ATM Paddington in Peru ,Dog Man and whatever that new Pixar movie is called look pretty good

Most likely I won't go to the theater unless it is showing a classic horror or science fiction movie but The Monkey and 28 Years Later are pictures I'd watch once they come to streaming apps free or otherwise.

No desire to go to theaters but if someone was like "Hey want to see ____" out of that list, I would be game to go and see:

• The Gorge. It looks bad, but good-bad. The concept seems neat and they have me hooked on the mystery of what is down there lol.
• 28 Years Later. Love the series, love the "fast zombie-but-not-zombie" concept. First film was great, second film doesn't get nearly enough credit for being a pretty damn good film...third should be good.
• Mission Impossible will be awesome, just like all (except number 2) Mission Impossible films were.
• Mickey 17 looks great. Love that actor, what's his face.

Ultra HD discs can't do variable 48 frames a second, nor 3D. So I plan to watch all the Avatar sequels theatrically and never again.

I'm looking forward to Superman.

I liked the Cobra Kai as well, so abit of 80's cheese might be good.

28 years later.

That's the only one I find remotely interesting.

I used to love movies. Horror, action, comedy, I'd watch anything.

Looking at this list is a reality check for me though, I hate new movies, why are there like 5 super Hero movies in the same year... seems like nearly a quarter of all the movies are just super Hero movies..

A new Avatar movie.. yeah hard pass

A live action remake of snow white.. hard pass

Another jurassic park.. I'd rather blow my brains out

A new karate kid.. hell no lol

Megan 2.0?!? Why does that movie deserve a sequel

28 years later might be cool.. Just seems way to late to care

Might check out the monkey when it comes to streaming, like Stephen kings stories, even though I find him as a person to be insufferable

Tom cruise mission impossible will probably be the best movie on this list, and I don't even like Tom Cruise and not a big MI fan

Mission Impossible and John Wick Ballerina

So far this year:

The Order, I'm familiar with the Robert Matthews story from the made for TV movie years back about the extremists that worship the Turner Diaries trying to create an Aryan Nation's state in the Pacific Northwest. Between this and Nosferatu, I think this is the better performance for Nicholas Hoult. Also has Jude Law, kind of funny they casted two Bri'ish actors to play the lead American roles, guess we suck. 🤣 Lucky I caught it when I did as it left the theater the next day.

Fire Inside, caught this next, also left theaters the day after I saw it. Pretty good story about a young boxer from Flint Michigan. Everybody loves a good underdog story. Story doesn't end with her accomplishment at Olympics, it chronicles challenges of difficulties of capitalizing on these athletes success, and how little support they get from the US Olympic organizations, and compensation disparities between men and women.

Babygirl was... meh at best. It was raunchy but not sexy. The seduction was messy and confusing. There were other elements in film like corporate culture, ambition, family life, all never really fleshed out. At one point it seemed like it was going to be a rip-off of Unfairhful when her husband has a panic attack and I'm like "oh he's gonna kill him". Instead they tussle and talk, husband say "SM is a male fantasy" and the boy toy says "that's such an outdated way of thinking" with a long reflective silence as if we were supposed to recover from our worlds being flipped upside down by the profoundly unprofound insight... kind of felt embarassing to watch honestly.

Wolf Man, the timing on this was perfect as seeing coincided with finally playing The Quarry having no idea it dealt with werewolves, then this came out... seemed like the universe was telling me I had to see it. I probably would have anyways as I enjoy horror a lot, even if I have to scrape the bottom of the barrel sometimes to make sure I don't miss a hidden gem. They did a decent job here, I enjoyed it. Felt a little mismarketed as I expected the dad to go all Cujo and that's not quite what happened.

One Of Them Days, I really enjoyed this. I you're in need of an entertaining popcorn flick this won't disappoint. Plenty of laughs. I loved the big booty girl using her ass as a weapon. That blood bank scene actually reminded me of my one time I tried to make quick cash and never went back.

Squeezed to films in for a double feature last week, Presence and Flight Risk. Presence was good, Steven Soderbergh is such a wild card sometimes I went with a curiosity about what kind of film it would be, plus I'll always try doing horror and thrillers. It was good, it was short but it wasn't any longer than it needed to be. I actually feel too it's not really horror but more a drama, it's only horror because there's a supernatural element but it was never a scary film, ominous at best. But good overall. Flight Risk was just a fun thriller, plenty of laughs mixed in there along the way. The fact that Topher Grace plays the informant a bald Mark Walberg was trying to kill... a part of me was thinking they should have made the guy who played Red from That 70s Show be the assassin and maybe throw in a line how he was going to stick his foot in his ass. I had a bit of a Crying Game reaction when credits rolled when it said it was a Mel Gibson movie... but yeah, I enjoyed it.

I saw was Companion, earlier this week when it was Regal's Myatery Movie Monday, $5 tickets and $9 popcorn/soda combo. I saw people feel the trailer gave it away... it didn't. I really liked it. That Sophie Thatcher is really becoming a "scream queen", and new season of Yellow Jackets coming in couple weeks, can't wait.

Since yesterday was the last day in my work week I decided to squeeze something off my list, saw Wicked. I needed to get out of house and forget about the country sinking into a fascist state... this didn't help 🤣 but it was good.

Couple movies I regret I never got around to seeing before they disappeared, Flow and The Damned. I hope Flow gets re-released since it's up for an Oscar.

I've already seen some of the movies coming out later this year that I can't talk about.

But as far as ones I haven't seen yet, I am excited for Mickey 17 as I'm a fan of Bong Joon Ho's work.

Later when I can collect my thoughts I wanna make a dedicated horror movie post for things to come, so much I don't even think I can remember so I need time to construct my thoughts. Also, March is going to be a huge month for releases, when I got time I'll follow up.

You only really feel this way when you're a mainstream simp that only take what is spoon fed by big studios.

Try this one from last year:

I was presented a list of films being released this year by TC and gave a take on them. These are theatrical releases for the year.

Yeah Juror #2 is great, Clint Eastwood is a Boss, like pretty much everything he's involved with, of coarse it was good, Clint directed it. It was streamed on HBO.

Weird to call someone a "mainstream simp" because you liked a movie that was a HBO max movie..

What i was getting at is the movies with big theater releases have been lacking big time lately

@sargentd: Spoiler alert: Davillain has shit taste in movies. Don't listen to guys like him.

Most movies are distributed by bigger distributors, including independently made films. That does not make them mainstream.

Mainstream simps are the ones that shill for Star Wars, comic book movies and The likes; and then complain why movies suck. I'd hate movies too if that's all the world I knew.

Step away from those movies and explore what's deeper, and you'll find there's still plenty worthwhile movies out there.

EDIT: Also, just to clarify, I don't mean to say just because a movie is mainstream that it default = bad. There's good mainstream movies out there too!

But the point is: the common pattern I see among those that complain about modern movies is they tend to see just what's mainstream. If that's the only place you hang with movies, then that's where this quality disparity begins to take shape.

Powered through The Brutalist, at first my reaction was mixed, but the more I think about it, I gotta say that I think it's genius, and for some reasons I've not seen many who praised it mention. They all seem to focus on ideas of ambition and personal sacrifice and something along those lines. I didn't focus any of that, that's a more superficial aspect of the plot. First I'll preface with idea this is an entirely fictional story, the character is made up, but in many ways it's a spiritual biography on the essence of brutalist architecture, but it's not very direct, it's very nuanced and layered.

What might stick out about a movie about architecture is there's actually very little in the movie, this is very intentional. Most architecture shots of cities like New York or Philadelphia show grand opulence and the spirit of excessive capitalism, which contrasts with brutalist themes of socialism, minimalism, and it's connection to nature with its raw design. As Laszlo's project was put right in the middle of the countryside, with the backdrop of nature, where most the film took place. The brutalist connection to nature was perhaps most pronounced when they go to the Italian marble quarry, which visually was perhaps the most connected with the essence of brutalist aesthetics, where you had the natural environment mixed with the touch of industry, with the large flat hard edges of the quarry all around, to monolithic proportions, where it was filled with the vibrant lives of the working people, and perhaps one of my favorite scenes in the whole film where the Italian says how their familiarity with the quarry helped them lure and kill the fascists there, how the guy never left the region his whole life except to visit the scene where Mussolini's body was hung to beat it with his own fists. Since I bring up this scene, this is the scene where Laszlo is later raped by his wealthy project financer, I think this was meant to be symbolic of the idea capitalism to dominate and oppress the working class.

Brutalism is often met with a hostile repulsion of its minimalistic and raw aesthetic. It sticks out as odd against urban backdrops with more opulent designed buildings. This mirror's Laszlo's experience as a displaced person from Europe due to WW2, coming to America to start a new life, the often publicized promiss of America being a land of new opportunity, and still facing societal rejection at each step. Even before he gets his commission, he's forced to live in homeless shelters while working jobs that are the engines of the capitalistic industry. The class disparity is very pronounced. Even while he worked the job he was being commissioned to do, he'd face constant insults from his wealthy benefactors. To add to that, while I mentioned before, Laszlo gets raped by one of the wealthy benefactors, it's also suggested his niece was raped as well by another of the benefactor family. But coming back around, this rejection of these displaced people, these immigrants, the poor, this in many ways mirrors the public opposition to brutalist architecture, and being layered as the film is, it mirrors the contrast of capitalism to socialism, wealthy against equity, the drive by the powerful to dominate the weak.

In ways I feel this film is less about the artist than the art. There's some subplot about the artist butting heads with those who finance it, but that's kind of a cliche at some point as many movies and TV shows depict this, it doesn't add anything new. I think the intention with the artist was to create something that will become timeless and enduring, like brutalist architecture often is, and will come to be appreciated years after its creation. Perhaps this was expressed in the scene where he mentions how much of Europe being decimated during the war, his buildings managed to survive. It makes me think of something like Habitat 67, anybody I have ever talked to about it remarks about how ugly it looks, to this day being some of the most sought after housing in all of Montreal.

@lamprey263: Great analysis.👏

For me the film was definitely an experience to have with lots I admire about it. For me though, I wanna see it again before giving a full analysis like the one you gave.

But yeah there's a lot of themes to be had. I don't think it's necessarily about one theme or another, because there are multiple takeaways from the film.

You can definitely look at it as an immigrant story. You can look at it through the lens of an artist in an exploitive society under the mantle of capitalism.

Overall though, lots of craft here, fantastic performances (shout-out to Guy Pearce especially), a memorable music score and fantastic cinematography and photographic shots.

To me this can be a complimentary piece to a film like There Will Be Blood, for they are both fictitious pieces of Americana that feel almost biographical, and both share themes of corruption behind greed.

Really hope this one gets best picture this year.

@jaydan: it's definitely a film I didn't know what to think when I first saw it, probably spent the next say feeling in part like I'd been hoodwinked by Oscar bait, but yeah more I thought about it, the more I appreciate it.

While I really loved the quarry scene as I thought it was the most natural depiction of the brutalist aesthetic, and beautiful at times in certain ways, but then saw another reviewer say he thought it depicted Hell itself, and signifying mentally where Laszlo put his own dignity on the line for his art going forward, and he has a point there. Just speaks to how nuanced and layered the film to have such duality. I'd certainly love to see it again on home video just to see what else I can dig out of it.

@lamprey263: To be honest all the best films in the world (my favorite movies) actually are the ones I initially felt perplexed, confused, unsure about, mixed - upon first viewing.

It turns out, I think most of the best films have a lot more depth to them to unpack, and they beg for multiple viewings.

That's why whenever I write film reviews, an important criteria I carry is the consideration of whether the experience is enhanced or diminished upon multiple watches.

A film like David Lynch's (RIP) Mulholland Drive is a perfect example of a movie that only gets better the more you watch it, whereas an MCU film may be most impressive the first time yet becomes less interesting upon multiple watches.

So yeah, that's my take on The Brutalist. I anticipate it being a whole different beast the next time I watch it, and I'm excited to add it to my Blu-Ray collection when it releases on physical.

@DEVILinIRON: "I'll go see 28 years Later in the theaters."

I wasn't biggest fan of 28 Days Later, but my gosh, I gotta give it credit for it being the primary catalyst for the explosion of zombie related films and TV shows in years to follow. Zombie stuff was kind a niche before that, Danny Boyle made it super mainstream.

Anyhoo, I hear this is actually part of a planned trilogy and they're already trying to get the next one greenlit.

Superman, Avatar 3 , 28 years later

I am going to catch this one next in theaters, marking my first 2025 release:

Movies that I’m looking forward to seeing this year are:

- Superman

- Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning

- The Fantastic 4

- Avatar: Fire and Ash

- Jurassic World: Rebirth

- Captain America: Brave New World

- Thunderbolts

- Minecraft

So wow did everyone's cinema enthusiasm for 2025 die off as quick as their other New Year resolutions? Figured someone would have come in here ecstatic about having seen The Monkey. Really? Nobody?

I loved it. Just the perfect level of absurd, equal parts gruesome horror and dark comedy. I know with the whole Osgood Perkins or writer/director of Longlegs marketing might turn people off if they didn't particularly like Longlegs... but this is a totally different beast. Frankly I don't care if I recommend this to you only for you to not like it, like being a total square with a stick up their ass is more a you problem.

@lamprey263: I don't think the enthusiasm died. January and February tend to be dry months and we've had a few cool ones already. Also OT isn't that trafficked these days so I wouldn't use this place as a metric for that kind of discourse.

The Monkey doesn't really interest me, to be honest. The next couple I'm looking forward to is Mickey 17 and The Actor.

You've been posting about NEON a lot lately. Not sure if I saw you post about this one yet:

Still remember that trailer that basically showed, every single thing in the movie, more or less.

@jaydan: overall I'd say the only two disappointments I've seen the last couple months were Love Hurts and Heart Eyes. Heart Eyes was actually about what I expected it to be anyways so I guess it met my expectations, it's like exactly what I'd expect if the Hallmark Channel made a horror movie.

Mickey 17 though, heck yeah. Looking forward to that for sure. I don't think I've seen a trailer for The Actor yet. March is definitely going to be packed, I just remember seeing trailer after trailer of things I wanna watch and it's like March or April so definitely going to be a busy few weeks for me. Glad I got my theater subscription pass.

@lamprey263: What are some of your other March movies you're looking forward to? I got my eyes on Death of a Unicorn as well but kinda on the fence about it.

Only Wicked and Snow White im gonna skip there.

Lol I'm down.