Last movie you watched......

I thought it was a worthy sequel. I liked the way they aged the kids and the relationship between Astrid and Hiccup was well done. The Stoic stuff worked for me.

Djimon Hounsou was perfect as Drago, but I have to admit he's one of my favorite actors and I like him in damn near everything.

The action was probably better than the first one because it always had life or death consequences, whereas the training scenes in the first one lacked a certain oomph, knowing no one was going to die.

I admittedly haven't seen many movies this year (and even fewer adult movies), but this was one of my favorites. I'd say it's the best animated movie of the year (though I haven't yet seen Big Hero 6).

 

I've seen Big Hero 6 as well. Making the comparison is funny to me simply because there are so many striking similarities between Big Hero 6 and the original How to Train Your Dragon. I won't explain because I would rather avoid spoilers, but I will say that a strength of each movie is a wonderful, non-human character. Baymax and Toothless are certainly very different creatures, but similar in spirit and each is a huge part of why the movies work.

I agree with what you say about aging Hiccup and Astrid and the character beats with Stoic were excellent. I didn't love how the aftermath was handled, but it is a relatively minor complaint.

 

Wim Wenders' Alice in the Cities from 1974 followed by a two-hour doc on German cinema of the 70s.
I can't explain it but I found it sad and depressing.
For all the issues French film has its German counterpart is incredibly fkd up.

 

Operation Pacific - for about the 20th time. Never gets old.

 

Hunger Games 3
I like each entry better than the last. Excited to see the next one.

 

The LEGO Movie: Loved it, absolutely loved it. One of the best movies I've seen all year, regardless of genre. Deliciously satirical, and loaded with clever cultural references.

Frozen: Usually I get what makes Disney movies such a phenomenon, but this one was lost on me. I found it tedious and the plot kind of confusing, and honestly the older sister sort of a bitch I didn't really want to root for. Is it really just about the song?

 

The One I Love

Not bad. Kinda trippy for the first hour, but they undercut that later in the movie and get pretty predictable with the ending. But I'll watch anything with Elisabeth Moss in it.

Mark Duplass movies make up about 40 percent of the Netflix catalogue, I'm convinced.

 

Finally saw the X-Men Days of Future Past. Qucksilver was the best part of the movie.

I think it was the worst of the X-Men movies. It didn't enjoy it. And it basically, made the previous installments null and void.

 

That was the idea. They didn't want to toss everything out, but they had a continuity mess to clean up, so this allowed for a soft reboot. I can understand why that would bother people and if it does, it would certainly ruin your enjoyment of the movie. That said, I'm not sure how you can say it was worse than X3: The Last Stand or the first Wolverine movie, which were the main culprits in making a mess of things.

 

Not just the one song. I do think the music is a big part of Frozen's appeal. It also makes fun of Disney princess movies a bit, which I think appealed to some adults. The problem there is that Enchanted poked fun at the same concepts, but did a better job.

The plot didn't make sense in places and the older sister was a bitch. Then again, she was initially going to be a villain, so changing that around could have been a big part of the problem. It doesn't hold up well once you think about it, but I do understand the appeal.

 

My wife and I were diametrically opposed on this one. It didn't do much for me, though I enjoyed the music (the opening riff reminded me of the Seven Dwarves singing "Hi Ho" - it felt like classic Disney).

The sisters' relationship really hit home with my wife, while it was totally lost on me. My son didn't love it on first viewing, though he grew to enjoy it more. How to Train Your Dragon, Toy Story and Monsters Inc. are his favorites, though, which OK with me since I really enjoyed all of them (Monsters University is probably my favorite, Toy Story 2 is probably his).

 

I thought it was OK, and with a house full of young kids it's obviously been popular over the past year. But it was still on par with most of this type of fare, even if it strays some from Disney princess stuff.

My wife and I bring this up to people often when talking about the movie and not thinking it was the bee's knees. We actually think Tangled was better. It's funny how often adults at least agree with us. But while popular with the kids, and enough so that there was a Tangled stage show at Disneyland when we went there last year, it certainly didn't catch on even close to the way Frozen did.

Like was brought up earlier, there's just no rhyme or reason why some of these take off and others don't. We were at that same Disneyland visit a week before Frozen came out. The only signs in the whole park of the movie were an Olaf skating rink in Downtown Disney and some movie posters. I don't even think Disney knew what was about to happen.