Passed the movie #250 mark since I started keeping track of the movies I watch (in a big ol’ spreadsheet) about two years ago. The 250th film was a rewatch for me — a great 2009 sci-fi story simply titled Moon, about a man who lives by himself on a moon facility for digging up an energy resource. A rather Twilight Zone-ish story that keeps you thinking.
For fun stats, I rated the 250 movies thusly:
Five stars — 20
Four stars — 39
Three stars — 79
Two stars — 81
One star — 32
Fifty were films I rewatched, and two hundred were movies I saw for the first time.
Some random film recommendations, among stuff that was new for me:
Drama: Drive My Car (2021)
Comedy: Safety Last! (1923)
Thriller: Funny Games (1997)
Animation: Ride Your Wave (2019)
Most Pleasant Surprise: Warm Bodies (2013)
Newest Favorite Release: Godzilla Minus One (2023)
Congratulations on the 250 and I hope your next 250 will have more 3-5 stars than two stars!
I started to track movies only a month ago, because I wanted to watch more regularly in 2024 to spent less time doom scrolling on the internet. This thread made me want to watch more series too, but I really have a hard time to commit to so many episodes, maybe I should start with a short series that was meant to be short not abandoned.
I doubt I will have a lot of movies with less than three stars, because I usually know what I am getting into and I do rather watch bad movies that are so bad they are hilarious and therefore at least good enough for three stars or I rather do stay away, but that’s of course easier to do because I only watch older ones.
Moon is a great movie. Most of it is watching a man at a rather boring work on a station on a moon and trying to tell someone about the movie without spoiling anything is really hard.
Oh right. I forgot the CA hosts were different people I don’t like lol.
I also like Graham Norton and Alan Carr a lot but then not on this show. I don’t know, I’m kind of over drag race in general. Too much fuckwittery. I begrudgingly watch US because others want me to.
We watched the Back to the Future trilogy ! I think I had only ever seen the first one, and not since I was little. I found it at the Dollar Store and the little clip inside the case broke…oh well, WCYD
– It’s pretty cool though; I like when they go Back to the Future and I like Einstein. As well as the friendship of Doc and Marty, as they go around and ruin everyone’s lives by disrupting the timeline!
– It’s too bad Jennifer gets sidelined a bit; I guess she was having her own adventure separately
– The Bad Future…or, Bad Present, with Evil Biff…that was kinda like the TMNT2K3 episode “Same as it Never Was”, except that they didn’t tear Biff apart with a giant drill. Though, I guess it’s said that the Lorraine eventually shot him
– Doc Brown and John Hammond should start a gang–a gang of Old Men who mess with forbidden science to create something amazing that ultimately ends up doing more harm than good !
– Power Wash Simulator has a Back to the Future section now; I actually did that before watching these
BTTF is one of the best movie series ever made. Apparently Robert Zemeckis has it written into his contract that none of the films can be remade until after his dead.
In other news, I finally watched Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. I rather enjoyed it, although it did feel a bit too reminiscent of the game’s story. Loved the animation though. Maybe I should start watching more anime (what have I become)?
I rewatched the trilogy last year. My opinion is the first is basically perfection, arguably one of the tidiest, most well-paced movie scripts out there. Meanwhile I found the second film mid (too much a rehash of the first), and the third one is just good (strange that it’s a full-blown western, but it’s a fun one). Doc and Marty are great characters, an unlikely duo you can’t help but root for. I agree they could’ve done more with Jennifer, especially in the second movie (she literally sleeps through most of it). But at least they gave Clara an active role in the third; she’s fun.
I think that’s arguably the best thing about Back to the Future — there haven’t been any needless 20-30 years later sequels or reboots for it. Might just be the only popular 80s thing to avoid that? And yes, I believe it’s all thanks to their contracts specifying the studios can’t make more without their permission. (Though certainly Christopher Lloyd’s age and Michael Fox’s health would’ve also been factors against late franchise additions.)
That said, I’m surprised there haven’t been any real big “spiritual successor” attempts. Comedy + time travel seems like a rather basic formula to iterate on, but I don’t see it happen on the big screen all that much. (All that immediately comes to mind is Bill and Ted, which was also from that era.)
I think the thing about time travel is, it just raises too many questions…is a little too unrealistic…causes paradoxes…I guess some people can make it work, though, as we see. I think I would personally avoid using it though
Bill and Ted was pretty good; it seems their Excellent Adventure didn’t really disrupt the timeline AFAWS. I used to say, hey, they could’ve saved Joan of Arc, etc. ! But I guess that was not their role
Making sense of time travel in most films is arguably a fool’s errand, and no movies have been discussed as much in that regard as the Back to the Future trilogy. The most classic question for the first movie being, whatever happened to the Marty who lived in the “good ending” present (nicer home, cooler dad, not bullied by Biff) before our protagonist Marty ended up in that timeline? It’s something you can just handwave of course, but I have to wonder if the two Martys must have swapped places.
The more concerning “flaw” to me is in the second movie, when Biff uses the time machine to change the past, then manages to return to his own future (vital for the plot, so that Marty and Doc are not stranded). I’ve read fan explanations for this (which feel kinda meh to me), but I’m mainly annoyed because it’s so specifically against the films’ biggest rule of time travel — i.e. if you change the past, the future of your timeline is changed too, so there’s no way to return to your “normal” future without first undoing what you changed about the past. Best to not worry about it, ha ha.
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure in part always felt like a response to these sorts of discussions, taking time travel nonsense to amusing extremes. The whole bit about them needing a key ASAP, deciding they’ll just time travel to set the key somewhere nearby, and then realizing the key should already be there (because to them at that point in time, their time traveling to the past has already happened)… is very funny.
I think the films don’t adhere to the multi world theory of time travel, therefore Marty is always a singular constant. The world changes around him, but because he traveled in time he is immune to the changes that a different like would have on his cognitive self (this last part somewhat contradicts that changing the past has the potential to erase him, but c’est la vie).
Correct, I just included them because they still fit the time travel model. And while Time Bandits doesn’t include a machine per se, the map they have provides the same function.
Can people not just enjoy a film and let the story take them on a journey anymore? Sheesh. Hope none of you watch Doctor Who, your head’s would explode.
