I like it much more than the first one. It's weird, visualy interesting and feels rather uniqe. Pitch Black on the other hand is basicaly a generic Alien rip-off.

Watched Lego Batman.

It was good, but I prefer the first movie. I think some of the reason is that part of the Lego novelty wore off after watching the first one. We both laughed hard at the voice-overs for the guns, with people making 'pew pew!' sounds just like kids would do.

i thought it was terrible, which sucks because i liked the lego movie.

Short listing of movies I watched during the Christmas holidays:

Voice from the Stone (2017)
Plodding and illogical. In the end very predictable and not very interesting.

Stasis (2017)
Garbage. Could have been a good setup, but horrible acting and poor plot.

Arrival (2016)
Quite interesting. It's not going to blow any minds, but one of the few recent movies which kept my attention. The plot fell slightly apart near the end, but still worth a watch.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
I hear people are very split on this. Found it quite interesting and somewhat breaking from the mold of Star Wars. Was never going to be as good as the hype and I disliked some of the production decisions, but I'm interested in seeing the next chapter. Definitely had it's good and bad moments.

Unknown Soldier (2017)
Absolutely brilliant, although as a huge fan of the book I am somewhat biased. Maybe a bit thick on the "everyone suffers in war" -message, but still a masterpiece of Finnish cinema.

Sully: Miracle on the Hudson (2016)
This was far more entertaining than I had expected. I knew of the story and this was probably a bit more dramatic than what really happened, but still definitely worth the time. A very slow character piece movie, so don't expect it to be action-packed.

House at the End of the Street (2012)
Just what you would expect from a low budget horror movie. Seen dozens of similar movies before, so was not anything special. Your mileage may vary if you're younger and have not seen too much of the genre.

The Client (1994)
Seen this before, but only had vivid memories. The movie reeks of 90's and shows its age, but still an interesting crime drama.

Samurai Cop (1991)
This was a recommendation as a "so bad it's good" movie and it delivered. Horrible acting, low production values and all-round below poor movie. Just what I was looking for at the time; extremely fun to watch with a bunch of friends.

Frankly, I thought it was terrible. Unlike the first one (which I already though was somewhat overrated), this one felt like it was aimed only at little kids. The jokes were mostly really bad, and it didn't feel like a Batman movie at all. I mean, I know it's a comedy, but the new animated Adam West movies for example were great at being both funny and still very much Batman. This... this had Batman names all over it, but they didn't mean anything.

Well, I didn't watch it as a Batman movie. I watched it as a Lego movie with Batman in it. As a Lego movie, it worked. Not as well as the first one, sure, but it met my expectations of what I figured it would offer.

Funnily enough I liked the Lego Batman movie more than the original Lego movie. Because of the original Adam West series, I can imagine and accept an even more absurd Batman version, but seeing Gandalf in the original Lego movie completely took me out of it. I just know that I'd hate the Lego Lord of the Rings games. However, considering my lack of feelings for Harry Potter books/movies, I might just like the caricatures from the Lego Harry Potter.

Audition

One of the most disturbing movies I can say I have ever seen, especially given how it seems to start as an entirely different film in terms of tone. Maybe I should have expected it, given this guy also directed Ichi the Killer, but it disturbed me nonetheless.

I've recently (about two weeks ago) watched Guardians (original Russian title: Защитники/Zashchitniki). Trailer (in Russian, turn on English subtitles if you need them, as I do) - there are English-language trailers that you can find if you really hate subtitles, or the Russian spoken language. Personally, I prefer watching movies in the original language, using subtitles if I need to, so that's what I link.

Looked pretty much like a Russian take on X-Men, or possibly Avengers. I don't know if the movie is the first instance of that story/world, or if there are earlier works not available here (or at least that I am not aware of), but while I found the movie lacking in some areas that may have been further explored elsewhere and thus would already be known to fans (should I spoil said areas, or let you find out for yourselves?), it was interesting to see the superhero concept based in a non-North America setting. I did enjoy the movie, and would like to see additions to the story and world in a form I can access (ie. available outside the former Soviet states, and in a language I understand).

Watched The Relic last night. Basically Jaws in a museum. I read the book years ago when it was new. The movie is an entertaining adaptation for the most part, but unfortunately the third act is incoherent with stuff like the monster apparently teleporting all over the place to menace characters when the plot requires them to be menaced. It ends with Penelope Ann Miller outrunning a fireball - stuff like that always reminds of the cowboy producer in Ed Wood who declares that the movie has to end with a big explosion.

What I find interesting about the movie is that it always strikes me an excellent candidate for a remake. If you're not familiar with the book (which is entertaining in a Michael Crichton rip-off sort of way), the movie adaptation completely deletes what most readers consider the most interesting character, Agent Pendergast, a tall, gaunt, aristocratic Southern FBI agent with a Sherlock Holmes-level intellect. D'Agosta, the hero in the movie, basically ends up as his Dr. Watson in the book. Pendergast was so striking that the authors later spun him off into still ongoing book series of him investigating weird horror cases. So you could remake the movie with an eye to setting up a potential Pendergast franchise. You'd think Hollywood would have been all over that but nothing so far.

And it's a shared universe, too! Even in the books that aren't centered on Pendergast, characters from Relic show up and the characters in the other books cross back over into the Pendergast series.

The Commuter

Neither the best nor the worst of the post-Taken Liam Neeson action movies and thrillers (of which I am in general a very big fan). The story makes no sense, or at least the overall vaillain plot/conspiracy doesn't. If we get over that, the rest works rather well, more a thriller about the building tension with a good dose of paranoia than an action movie, though the few action sequences it has work well. If ever you wanted to see Liam Neeson armed with an electric guitar fighting a guy with an axe - this is the movie for you. It feels like lesser and somewhat forced version of the superb Non-Stop from a few years back, but it's well made enough to still be fun to watch, and Neeson is as always excellent, seemingly effortlessly pulling off what is in many ways essentially a one man show.

IT

Wow, a really good adaptation of a Stephen King horror novel. Well, half of it anyway. There are apparently plans for part 2, but it does make sense to do it in two parts and you can walk away from this first part satisfied that you have a complete tale.

Blade Runner 2049

Finally got around to seeing this one, which I let slip past me in the theatre. Really. F'ing. Good. Not much more to say about it.

Is there a possibility that Blade Runner 2049 will have a sequel?