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Amazon Prime streaming video recommendations thread

I mean, The Matrix’s leather coats are not particularly cheesier than Arnie’s sunglasses in just about every Terminator film. At least The Matrix had the decency of not making the coats gags and references in the sequels. Unlike Arnie’s dark sunglasses, which get hilarious nods in most if not all of the sequels featuring Arnie.

Bottom line: anyone embarrassed by such details in The Matrix should really consider T2 as equally if not more cringeworthy.
 
The Matrix does not deserve in a million years to describe as anywhere near embarrassing, even if one thinks it hasn’t dated well.

Any film that captures the collective imagination of viewing audiences, becomes a lasting cultural reference for numerous references, metaphors or memes, and was so thought-provoking it has inadvertently led to a distinct psychological affliction (people who believe they are living in the Matrix for real), deserves a huge amount of credit, and is anything but bad, let alone embarrassingly so.

What’s so bad about it anyway? :confused:

I don't really know what to say. I completely agree, which is why I was so surprised and sad to say that on a recent rewatch (and though I have not seen it for a while, it's one film I have rewatched and enjoyed more than most) I was utterly bored and embarrassed by it.
Feeling like I had to constantly explain to my daughter why it was good (because they were the 'first to do this and that', and the impact it had on cinema and the public at the time) meant that it clearly wasn't standing up on its own.
I can't speak for anyone else but I thought it had dated badly and my daughter (who was keen to see where the cultural references to it came from) dismissed it immediately.
 
The Terminator looks and feels horribly dated but I still enjoy and appreciate it. Some Like It Hot looks even more dated and socially cringy but I still enjoy and appreciate that too. And as it goes for films, so it goes also for books. It is possible to enjoy an artistic work whilst giving due respect to its historical technological and cultural context.
 
Fair enough if you judge that as being a deal breaker. But please then don’t go and tell me than certain other sci-fi films that also enjoy cult status and which are also laden with a lot of cheesy stuff, are fine in your book. I mean, you must also think the likes of Starship Troopers or Terminator 2 are similarly shit, right?
I don't know if those points were deal breakers, I was trying to pinpoint what made watching it made me cringe. I have not seen starship troopers or T2 recently so I can't comment, but I did enjoy them previously. Though I think the cheese in starship troopers is something else, they are not trying to be cool, it's supposed to be cheesy in the context of the film's message. Arnie in T2 is having trouble getting being cool right, so it's cheesy (and cool) on purpose. The matrix is trying very hard to be cool all the way through, so when the 'cool' quotes, fashion and music seem dated, they become cheesy where they used to be cool. . . It's a different thing.
 
The Terminator looks and feels horribly dated but I still enjoy and appreciate it. Some Like It Hot looks even more dated and socially cringy but I still enjoy and appreciate that too. And as it goes for films, so it goes also for books. It is possible to enjoy an artistic work whilst giving due respect to its historical technological and cultural context.
I'm sure it is. . . And generally I do. This is why I was surprised to find the matrix had suddenly become such a tedious viewing experience for me. I thought it was noteworthy, hence I mentioned it. You lot can't keep telling me that I'm not allowed to say I didn't enjoy the matrix FFS. I just didn't. And yes I totally appreciate its influence etc etc. I once really enjoyed watching it, I watched it recently and didn't enjoy it at all. The end.
 
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I'll report back :thumbs:

I suspect the fact that I've only seen it once might mean it's not holding the same place in my head as it might be in yours? We'll see.
 
I'm sure it is. . . And generally I do. This is why I was surprised to find the matrix had suddenly become such a tedious viewing experience for me. I thought it was noteworthy, hence I mentioned it. You lot can't keep telling me that I'm not allowed to say I didn't enjoy the matrix FFS. I just didn't. And yes I totally appreciate its influence etc etc. I once really enjoyed watching it, I watched it recently and didn't enjoy it at all. The end.
One possibility is simply that you’ve seen it too many times. See anything enough and it just becomes boring.
 
One possibility is simply that you’ve seen it too many times. See anything enough and it just becomes boring.
It wasn't boredom in that way. I haven't seen it for years. I just didn't like it. At all. I know what it is like to watch a film a lot and get bored because I have seen it a lot. It wasn't that. My opinion of the parts I previously liked had changed.
Had the same with Bogus Journey, but I don't want to make this a Keanu thing.
 
It wasn't boredom in that way. I haven't seen it for years. I just didn't like it. At all. I know what it is like to watch a film a lot and get bored because I have seen it a lot. It wasn't that. My opinion of the parts I previously liked had changed.
Had the same with Bogus Journey, but I don't want to make this a Keanu thing.
Fair enough. If you don’t like it any more, you don’t like it any more.
 
Anyway - I watched "I Care A Lot" yesterday which I enjoyed a great deal and "Little Joe" which was lovely to look at and has an interesting soundtrack but ultimately felt like Tales of the Unexpected..
 
Anyway - I watched "I Care A Lot" yesterday which I enjoyed a great deal and "Little Joe" which was lovely to look at and has an interesting soundtrack but ultimately felt like Tales of the Unexpected..
A lot of films I'm watching lately seem a bit like that. One episode of TOTU stretched out to the length of a film. No real substance beyond the set up of the twist/end. The story/journey isn't there, just an idea you could explain in a paragraph.
 
One to avoid... Escape from Pretoria. True life prison break starring Daniel Radcliffe. Not sure where to start with how bad it is. Watch A Man Escaped or Stir Crazy instead.
 
One to avoid... Escape from Pretoria. True life prison break starring Daniel Radcliffe. Not sure where to start with how bad it is. Watch A Man Escaped or Stir Crazy instead.

It might be a little perfunctory, and revisits a lot of the standard escape-from-gaol tropes, but it didn't strike me as ‘bad’.
 
It might be a little perfunctory, and revisits a lot of the standard escape-from-gaol tropes, but it didn't strike me as ‘bad’.

As prison break films go it was awful :D...The slightest bit of background story. The acting was terrible, accents rubbish. Ian Hart's brummie South African being the worst. The French guy was probably the worst performance mind. I didn't get any feel of how bad the prison was to be in and the guards were just made out to be a bit thick rather than in any way threatening. Every bit where tension was attempted I was just thinking 'come on get it over with'. I liked the inside of shots of lock internals that was about it.

I imagine there's not many good prison breaks left to cover and it probably deserved something better.
 
I’m watching The Street about Hoxton St London and it’s a street I go down a fair bit, so it’s interesting to see it in 2016 which is when I just started to go down Hoxton occasionally. I was down there most weekends in 2019-2020.

There is a lot to unpack in it and a lot of stories.

Yep - that was a good watch... Made me wonder just how many pubs I used to go to in the 90s/00s have now closed down in Islington. (Though, obv, there are somewhat bigger issues in the film..)
 
Yep - that was a good watch... Made me wonder just how many pubs I used to go to in the 90s/00s have now closed down in Islington. (Though, obv, there are somewhat bigger issues in the film..)

I think my main criticism or feedback is that it could have dealt better with race, probably would need to be longer though. Minority perspectives felt a bit underexplored

Many of the people I see around there are minorites and have lived there for a long time even if they aren't rocking quite the pedigree of the eel pie guy or the old lady.
 
Erased. Clever time-travel anime where a man travels back in time into his 10 year-old self to prevent 3 murders at his elementary school. I do highly recommend it, but it's going on the 20th so hurry up!
 
Leave No Trace. Young woman and her Vietnam vet Dad living in the forests of Oregon come to the notice of authorities. Absolutely brilliant film start to finish. She reminds me so much of my lass at that age.

Best film of 2018. I bawled my eyes out when I got home after seeing it.

It was the last film I saw with Jake but he'd been at work and was tired and didn't stay to the end. We altered the last line of the film slightly for his seat plaque at the cinema. 'We know you would stay if you could'. I still mean to watch it again.
 
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