Rate the last movie you watched.

Avatar image for electricbarrier
electricbarrier

70

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

I was gonna say something else but then I remembered the last movie I saw was Hellraiser II, so this is going to be the last two movies I saw because I wanna say a more obscure one.

So Hellraiser II gets a 4/5. I enjoyed it about as much as I did the first one, very good movie, great practical effects, cool sets, very painful looking. I liked how much it was just a direct sequel, picking up right after the first one(this is apparently something the others do not do at all), and seeing more of the Labyrinth and hell was great, as was seeing the dark god Leviathan(even if they do defeat it pretty easily. I suppose they do in Silent Hill too and I love that game.) It was a good 80s body horror movie and I had a good time watching it. Sadly and ironically, I had just finished watching it when I heard Kentarou Miura died. I got around to both(as well as watched Flesh+Blood) because of their influence on Berserk.

The movie, sorry I mean film, I watched before this was The City of Lost Children, a french film from the mid 90s. I'd also rate it 4/5. It has Ron Pearlman in it speaking french! As sideshow strongman with a heart of gold, called One. He's goes on an adventure through the strange, dark, and incredibly well designed city(cannot stress this enough, fantastic set and art design), looking for Denree, who he sees as his little brother. Denree has been kidnapped by agents of Krank, an old evil clone of a scientist who is kidnapping and giving kids nightmares when he links up to their dreams trying to find a way for him to dream, as he can't. There's also a brain in a green fishtank who talks through a speaker. On One's quest he ends up roped into helping some orphans steal a safe full of jewels for two conjoined twins who force the children to steal for them, and since one of the orphans runs off with him, they also chase after them. They use a weird bug that can cause people to be mind controlled by a street organ if it injects them with some weird green liquid.

What I'm saying is this movie is weird and pretty silly. I don't know french so I can't tell how much of it is intentional, but I'd say the tone is fairly comical. It's surreal and fun and it looks cool, I'd highly recommend it if what I said sounds good to you.

Avatar image for infantpipoc
infantpipoc

703

Forum Posts

12

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 44

User Lists: 24

@nodima said:
@infantpipoc said:

@apewins: There were accusations made against James Franco at the time, so those cowards at the Academy took it away. I have no idea what Franco had or had not done allegedly, but that's the Academy for you,

Among other things, he removed genital guards from scene partners of his during scenes depicting oral sex and sprang scripts containing sexual content on acting students of his with no advance warning.

Oh, okay. His taking advantage of people during work do warrant the Academy's decision there and then.

Avatar image for sombre
sombre

2231

Forum Posts

34

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 3

This month's movies "New Movies":

Godzilla vs Kong (2021): Absolutely ridiculous. I didn't really understand the hollow earth stuff, and I thought the movie was largely stupid as shit. The CGI was pretty good, but the movie was all in all a mess. 2/5

Nothing to Hide: Really really interesting film. Apparently it's the most re-made film ever, being made in about 20 different languages. It's a film about a bunch of friends who all put their phones on the table at a dinner party, and then all look at the phones together when a notification comes in. Obviously, everyone's cheating on everyone, and it's a mess. For record, I watched the French version. It was fantastic. 4/5

They Live: Not much to be said about this film, except that it ruled. It's a bit cheesy in 2021, sure, but it's largely very good. Roddy Piper and Keith David steal every scene they're in. 4/5

This month's "Rewatches":

The Ip Man trilogy: Kick ass Kung-Fu. The second one is the best, and the third one is a bit crap, but all in all they are a fantastic trilogy of Donnie Yen kicking serious arse. Mike Tyson speaking Chinese is the star of the show, by which I mean I hate it.

1: 4/5

2: 5/5

3: 4/5

American Beauty: Watched it with my partner, her first time seeing it. That movie is really good, and has a strong message about bettering yourself. Shame about Spacey, and the inherent message, but it's still a great film. 5/5

Drunken Master 2: Probably Jackie's finest. If you like martial arts movies, even in the slightest, you have to watch this. 5/5

Face/Off: 4 Nic Cage faces out of 5.

Avatar image for jerame2999
jerame2999

15

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

Army of the Dead

I think Zach Snider is over-rated and I had hoped that going back to the zombie well would make for a more interesting tale. I loved his version of Dawn of the Dead.

Army of the Dead is a B tier Left 4 Dead rip-off and Batista's crying face looks like he needs to take a dump. With the exception of Omari Hardwick the supporting cast was either bored or cashing that Netflix check.

2/10

Avatar image for jerame2999
jerame2999

15

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

@bwast: Only 3/5. I mean as a fan of crappy 80s horror Chopping Mall is up there with Critters and Puppet Master.

Avatar image for infantpipoc
infantpipoc

703

Forum Posts

12

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 44

User Lists: 24

Final Fantasy Spirits Within. 5 out of 5!

Not because it's a good movie. In fact it deserves to be the laughing stick it it. But seeing it again in 2021 makes me realize that how many game developers still steal from it. There are bits and pieces in Mass Effect. There are Shades in NieR Replicant, who are basically Phantoms that bleed. There is the motherfucking Death Stranding, Hideo "DID NOT INVENT NOTHING" Kojima left so much from the movie that almost tanked Sakaguchi's career. This god damned movie is so influential.

Avatar image for nopantsninja
NoPantsNinja

19

Forum Posts

12

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Parasite 5/5

I'm always watching Academy Awards winners with extremely low expectation. Parasite however was awesome. I really enjoyed the movie and the message.

Avatar image for oldguy
OldGuy

1714

Forum Posts

28

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 3

Manhunt (2017) - Manhunt (2017) - IMDb This is the John Woo one (in case you get confused with the multiple movies and TV shows with that name). Not great Woo but good. He gets back to his gun-fu after his foray into history movies. Stupid. Slow mo. Blood. Plenty of "What?!" plot moments. Physics Defying. Good people are GOOD!!, bad people are EVILLLLL!!! (except for the ones who were misguided and swap sides). You know, just the kind of turn your brain off stuff I was looking for. 4/5

Avatar image for nodima
Nodima

3878

Forum Posts

24

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 13

User Lists: 0

Memento (2000) - 4/5

Interesting re-watch in 2021, in a political era where regular citizen can feel as gaslit and used as Shelby is here.

I'm never quite sure where I land on Pearce's performance, other than it's certainly a magic trick of some kind. He's so boring, yet so ready to have fun, yet always down for the next adventure, yet always worried he's not supposed to be where he is. It's chaotic with a purely bizarre level of artifice that makes every other character's frustration with him palpable, while also selling Shelby as the sort of risk taker in death that he was employed to sniff out and suffocate in life.

Also always easy to forget: how funny the middle section of this movie is. Sure, eventually you get to the bit where Carrie Anne-Moss is ripping into Guy Pearce for being a "retard" (God, Carrie Annie-Moss does a lot with a part that's not greaton paper) but the whole sequence with Dodd gives Mementothat whimsical, cinematic edge Nolan's always been so good at putting his finger on. You might not like the abstract of his idea - and this truly does feel like a sort of outline for every movie he's made since - but Nolan, I think, is a true master of getting into the little nooks and minutiae of his half-baked premises and extracting a damn film out of them.

Sometimes I think this is a 3-star movie because it's so convoluted despite the diminutive scale compared to his later galaxy brain excursions and the dialogue, especially in the first third, can be a little patience testing (likely intentional). Sometimes - most times - I think this is a 4-star movie because it's genuinely impressive that he was able to tell a story backwards in a way that both stands in awe of the power of editing and manages to hit the necessary A-B-C structure of a mystery without functionally misrepresenting what this mystery looks like when told C-B-A. That's super cool!

It probably shouldn't be a surprise than Nolan's movie about how and why we tell stories to ourselves is his most formally impressive work, or why he chases this dragon again every handful of years. It still kind of is, though.

Avatar image for gundato
Gundato

1170

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

#6260  Edited By Gundato

I guess heads up: this is gonna get a bit long, a bit rambly (surprise!), and a bit personal. Also, Bruce Lee is a big theme throughout this.

The last year or so has been… weird and very introspective. And over the course of the year, for reasons I didn’t fully understand until now, I have watched a LOT of AAPI films (and discovered I am addicted to depressing ultraviolet south korean crime dramas). For the purposes of this post, I’ll talk about the Ip Man series and (a bit cheating) the Warrior tv show.

Ip Man 1 is… straight up chinese propaganda. Don’t get me wrong, Donnie Yen is frigging godlike (best german suplex in huiman history) but he also knows who butters his toast and has zero issues with pandering to them. And Ip Man 1 is right up there with “baby panda loves the value of labor” levels of propaganda for the CCP. It is still awesome but… keep that in mind. 3/5 because I love the scene where Master Ip fights ten dudes.

Ip Man 2 is when things start shifting to a more traditional action movie style series and I love it. Not a lot to speak of because it is generic as hell but… Donnie Yen. 2/5

Ip man 3 is… a mess. The first half is a weird action movie where Ip Man saves education from Mike Tyson (who apparently learned how to phonetically recite a few lines) and … I genuinely don’t know what is going on. But the second half is a weirdly good guy-romance that does the wife character justice and has probably the best fight scene in the entire of the Ip Man series where Master Ip fights a Muay Thai expert in an elevator while protecting his sick wife. 4/5 because I positively loved the last half when it stopped being a martial arts film and became all about a guy who realizes he has been shitty to his wife and is trying to make it up to her before she dies. And a bonus 7/5 for whatever Mike Tyson was. Like… what the fuck?

But Ip Man 4… that fucked me up for a lot of reasons.

And now we get to the back story. I am half chinese and half… lots of white. Growing up I had a racist white grandmother who thought I was too yellow and a a racist chinese grandmother who thought I was too white. My father barely gave a shit and my mother is a chinese white supremacist (THAT is one of those things that oscillates between hilarious and anger inducing depressing). Elementary and middle school was mostly being reminded I was weird. Once I got into high school (I went to a math and science high school… shit was weird), I was ALSO reminded that I am not REALLY chinese but was further reminded I was not white even though I should probably identify as that because I wasn’t smart enough to REALLY be asian. So…. yeah, I spent a lot of time finding ways to eat lunch on the roof.

And Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan were both big parts of my childhood. Even though I wasn’t REALLY asian, I loved that these were two guys who completely dominated cinema and transcended race. And being able to watch that, particularly around the time that action movie stars were coked out lunatics who gave Kylie Minogue herpes (JCVD), slow shitheads (Seagal), and martial artists who would never be allowed to film a good scene (American Jet Li and Jason Statham)... it felt good to see someone who looked like the other half of me.

Anywho the past year has been… great. Apparently with a mask I mostly look chinese so I have been reminded far more than once by my racist white trash neighbor who loves to run to his car while waving a tacticool m4 that I am the cause of the pandemic and LOTS of racist slurs and… yeah.

Speaking of, fuck GB for STILL having an emote of a piece of racist shit who commit violent hate crimes against vietnamese folk. Not really relevant to the topic at hand but… seriously, how is that still a thing?

And, from talking with friends in a similar boat over the years, my experience is pretty normal. Too chinese/vietnamese/taiwanese to be white but too white to be chinese/vietnamese/taiwanese so we tend to just identify as “asian” (now “AAPI”) regardless of what country we come from.

Anywho, that gets us to Warrior (cheating but that show is so frigging good) and Ip Man 4.

Warrior is… a weird ass show that is depressingly timely and even more depressingly always timely. For those unaware, it is based on a show Bruce Lee tried to get made before his passing that is about the chinese in san francisco at the tail end of the gold rush. It starts off with the “you aren’t worth being properly racist to” levels of discrimination toward chinese people and rapidly escalates to full on race wars as the Irish blame the Chinese for taking all the cheap labor jobs and politicians build on that to get reelected. A lot of the show focuses on Ah Sahm, Li Yong, and Hong as almost a three phases of a warrior where each wants to make the world better for their people but each has their own way of doing it that mostly has to do with their place in the world and largely align with the writings of Bruce Lee. It i a GOOD fucking show and Joe Taslim plays Li Yong and that handsome Indonesian (?) murder beast can do no wrong. And while it definitely started as skinemax, the female characters are arguably even more interesting than the men. I’ve watched one episode in particular multiple times that starts truly horrifying but becomes one of the most satisfying hours in television and I love it (if you have seen season two you should know exactly which one I mean). And while it is probably not great that Ah Sahm is a Japanese/British guy playing basically Bruce Lee, I love that it transcends this to a more universal AAPI experience as a result. Also, Andrew Koji (and Joe Taslim) are frigging awesome. 4.5/5

But that gets me to Ip Man 4. Ip Man 4 is probably a bad movie as there is no real unifying plot and it is mostly Donnie moving from scene to scene. But given the state of the world… it fucked me up something fierce. It is about Ip Man heading to San Francisco to try to make a better life for his kid before he dies of cancer (and I fully acknowledge having a cancer scare over the past year did not help me…). Because it is Ip Man and still some hardcore chinese propaganda it involves Master Ip fixing racism but also deciding that China is a better place for his son. Yeah…

But throughout the course of it, it was real as hell. Yonah is the daughter of one of Ip Man’s rivals and some bad shit happens to her and she gets her hair cut by a racist asshole. And I truly love that she asks “Uncle Ip” to help her even it out and it is painfully clear in the next scene that he did a shit job of it. I similarly love that her father blames her for starting a fight in a way that anyone with a chinese parent will understand: the instinctive assumption that it is all your fault that a bunch of shitheads beat you up and abused you. Like, I god damned love Yonah.

But also, I love the role Bruce plays even though he probably had less than five minutes of screen time. Ip Man 4 is very clearly passing the torch in a way I love (and that I suspect was not what the directors and CCP planned). From the end credits of Ip Man 1 on you are constantly reminded that Master Ip is one of Bruce’s masters (because propaganda, heavily implied only master) and he increasingly becomes a character over the moives. He is an obnoxious and arrogant little shit but he also, especially by 4, shows that he can back up his arrogance*. And I positively love that it is immediately established that he is “the next generation” and actively does not care about racism and “being chinese” with the student he sent to China being a black guy with a decent ‘fro. But also, it is rapidly established that the rest of the chinese immigrants don’t really feel that way and the white americans REALLY don’t feel that way and there is a constant background theme of how he probably made things a LOT worse in the short term but hopefully has made things better in the long term (not sure if I believe that at this point but… Bruce tried). And stuff like Yonah caring more about being a cheerleader than martial arts but also incorporating what her father taught her to help a lot with that. And Master Ip is very clearly portrayed as someone who is not quite there but who clearly influenced the man who was. I am always a sucker for acknowledging that change takes time and that it isn't an overnight thing. 4/5

So yeah, mostly rambly and a good reminder that i should just get a god damned blog at this point. But also felt like something I had to type out regardless of who reads it or where it goes. One of those things where it was more important to type out my thoughts and... after you type that many words you might as well spam some folk.

-----

*Also, tangential :Fuck Quentin Tarantino for portraying Bruce Lee as an ineffectual and arrogant loser in his “what it would be like if Hollywood stayed great” racist shitheap where the white blonde guy needs to go over everyone. I am ALL for portraying Bruce as a cocky and violent shithead because… for as awesome as he was, he definitely was one. Like, Bruce may be one of the all time greats but he was very definitively a mother fucker. But for all his arrogance… that was one guy who could back it up. But it is hollywood so always gotta be a bit racist, I guess.

Avatar image for luisrz
luisrz

34

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

World of Tomorrow Episode 3 - 5/5

The latest installment of The World of Tomorrow series from writer/director Don Hertzfeldt focuses on the character David who receives a message from the far future. I really liked the past two episodes of this short film series and really recommend both of them, but this one was probably my favorite. It recontextualizes the stories of the previous two episodes in a way that I found really satisfying. It also deals with time travel in a way that makes a whole lot of sense within the world that Hertzfeldt created.

Avatar image for sirdesmond
sirdesmond

1545

Forum Posts

1672

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 3

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It - 6/10

Fine - generally made well, cool twist to have an active human antagonist in the story but they've all waned in quality since the first (which I really enjoyed at the time).

Avatar image for usmanaziz
UsmanAziz

3

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

#6265  Edited By UsmanAziz

ooo my God too much Old thread.But I'm happy to reply here, that the last movie that I watched is Take Point (2018). The story of the movie is "On the day of the U.S. presidential election in 2024, Ahab (HA) and his team of elite mercenaries embark on a secret CIA mission to abduct North Korea’s Armed Forces Minister in an underground bunker below the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).However, they get caught in the crossfire which causes tensions to escalate to the brink of World War III".

Avatar image for bill_mcneal
bill_mcneal

951

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Luca - 10/10

There's a lot I can say about it, but to make it brief: it hit me harder than I thought it would. It subverted my expectations and I loved it more for "what it isn't" than "what it is".

I could write an essay about what and who I liked and so on and so forth, but...I just loved it.

Avatar image for kevinwalsh
KevinWalsh

260

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Saw F9 last night and it was not good. Not even dumb fun, just dumb.

Avatar image for deactivated-63cd8ec76d97f
deactivated-63cd8ec76d97f

139

Forum Posts

87

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Just watched the first Candyman and boy what a good film.

Avatar image for davesavedtheday
davesavedtheday

136

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Empire Strikes Back 100/10

Avatar image for leviathan_dive
Leviathan_Dive

106

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

The Breaker Upperers. Strange New Zealand Indi comedy, quirky had some laughs 3/5.

Avatar image for leviathan_dive
Leviathan_Dive

106

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@usmanaziz: Yeah I dont know why they bury the newest comments on the bottom.

Avatar image for hhap
HHAP

578

Forum Posts

3096

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 4

Luca 3/5

I can see Disney going in the direction of trying to make films based off every culture in the world. Wish there was more emotional payoff in the end for this one.

Avatar image for hhap
HHAP

578

Forum Posts

3096

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 4

F9: The Fast Saga 5/5

If you know what you're expecting, I think this nails all those beats. The flashback scenes were great, although the casting could have been better. The only other thing that I did not like was the "explanation" of how a certain character was able to return to the fold. It just seemed Justin Lin couldn't figure it out a reasonable (even for this franchise's standards!) and had to resort to a parlor trick. Otherwise, great action scenes, usage of the gimmick weapon, and funny (almost 4th wall breaking) quips.

Avatar image for wollywoo
wollywoo

1049

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

The Magicians, S1E1. 7/10.

I watched just enough of this show to know that I wanted to read the book and not watch the show yet. The episode was enjoyable but *far* too fast-paced, covering lots of plot points that should have been spread out over like 5 episodes. One minute Quentin is discovering that magic really exists, the next minute he's talking as if he's an old pro. Started reading the book, and as expected, it's much slower-paced; although, actually the book still clips along pretty fast as well and does not dwell too much on Quentin's reaction to seeing magic in the world. (Surely he must think he's going insane. But he accepts it pretty quickly.) Initial impression from reading the first 80 or so pages: it's Harry Potter with f-bombs. It's intriguing; will give it some more time. Given the critical praise I assume it goes some very interesting places from here.

Avatar image for sombre
sombre

2231

Forum Posts

34

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 3

Star Wars Episode 2: The Clone Wars 2/5

I remember it being terrible, and completely unmemorable, and it was. I watched it with my partner, who said she had a lot of fond memories of it, and when we watched it, we kinda looked at each other and went "This is kind of crap isn't it?"

The opening bit with the Assassin is really exciting, and the Colloseum fight is fun, but for the most part, it's dragged down by the AWFUL romance subplot.

Infact, I'm changing the 3/5 to a 2/5

Avatar image for polofemilimc46
polofemilimc46

1

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

#6278  Edited By polofemilimc46

BRIGHT

2017, Action/Fantasy

Perhaps expecting Bright to ask pertinent questions or think beyond its "Orc is the New Black" conceit was too much. As such, the limited world-building is just window-dressing for a basic survive-the-night thriller that putters along on toxic fumes

https://www.worktime.com/employee-time-tracking-software

Incredibly derivative and practically unwatchable.

2/10

Avatar image for tartyron
tartyron

788

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD

A little scattershot and unfocused, but not out of character for Tarantino. Fantastic soundtrack, fun vignettes, good performances. The ending feels like a historical correction much in the way Inglorious Basterds did. All in all, a solid entry into Tarantino's library and a step up from Hateful Eight. The most obvious and blatant foot fetish shots of his whole career.

Avatar image for nodima
Nodima

3878

Forum Posts

24

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 13

User Lists: 0

Portrait of a Lady on Fire - 5/5

One of those movies where there's really nothing to be said about it. Literally the only complaint someone could have about this movie is that it's slow and not about much, but then you're the sort of person who likely sees a trailer for this and knows you aren't ever going to watch it anyway. Also of note, wild to watch such a dedicated period piece shot in 8K widescreen format - Saint-Pierre Quiberon, Morbihan, France is fucking gorgeous! There's a reason this is one of, if not the only, movie on Letterboxd to have the star rating icons altered to flame emojis.

After, that, in chronological order until I wrap back around to Portrait...

Gunpowder Milkshake - 2.5/5

Unfortunately there’s just not a lot of heart, or emotional core, to Gunpowder Milkshake, replaced instead with a pastiche of so cool you’ll miss how cool it is dialogue, comedic action scenarios presented about as blandly as possible and a general desperation that clouds even the best stuff here.

Thankfully the cast is insanely good and, again, while none of them pay what they promise, plenty of the action scenes do grab your attention before letting you slip through their fingers.

Bo Burnham: Inside - 4/5

I get why creatives and big city, free to stay at home types got crunk to this movie both for the highs and lows, but as a Midwestern dude working in restaurants who was pretty much forced to live life as normal and cross my fingers, I both saw the artifice in this right away and really appreciated the songwriting. I expected this to turn on some kind of weird, sad documentarian perspective, but it's just a bunch of really good Weird Al-adjacent songs about hanging out at home.

Terminator: Dark Fate - 2/5

Dark Fate, which I only watched because Shea Serrano lightly defended it during a Rewatchables episode about T2, has a few things going for it: while emotionless, the opening action set piece is fun to watch, and everything leading up to it is shot beautifully with enough signifiers of modern prestige (say it with me: representation) it's reasonable to get one's hopes up. Unfortunately, that emotionlessness of the very opening scene, and lack of investment in the new characters, lingers pungently and really starts to settle in as the action subsides. This movie really wants its audience to remember what it felt like to see T2 for the first time to the point it forgets to recreate that feeling in its own construct.

(Also from my Letterboxd review: Sarah Connor has grown up to be a superhero version of Laurie Metcalf's tough-but-hilarious mother figure in Lady Bird, [and] Skydance's Fast & Furious envy builds to a crescendo in which both the climaxes of Fast 6 and 7 are represented successively.)

No Sudden Move - 4/5

[Ed. note: I could've very easily given this a 4.5, I just didn't!]

Everyone in this cast, from Brendan Fraser to Dave Mishevitz and everything in between, is on an absolute tear and the costume/set design is par excellence (those masks!). I just could not get over how righteously good this movie is on a surface level, with just enough plausibility undergirding it that I never got tired of the artifice or went searching for its soul.

Skyfall - 4/5

[This was a rewatch. I was a bit surprised this wasn't a 4.5 or 5, but the more I see this movie the more I realize I'm mostly stoked on New Q, Bardem's introduction and the final set piece. Having also finally seen Quantum of Solace a bit before I re-watched this, I find the whole schtick of Depressed Bond a little less charming than I did the first couple times I saw Skyfall.]

Skyfall has a lot of flexes. My favorite is probably when they take the climax of Collateral and make it the bookend to their prologue, complete with giant jellyfish.

Avatar image for tartyron
tartyron

788

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

WEREWOLVES WITHIN

Punching way above its weight, I found this movie to have a lot of great moments and the cast did a great job. I love movies where it seem the performers are having a great time making it, and this definitely falls into that category. An all-together fun time even if it’s not one of the all time great comedies or anything. Also, kind of nice seeing a movie set in winter while living through the west coast heat of this summer.

Avatar image for ohverture
Ohverture

57

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

I watched the most recent Space Jam.

It was perfectly fine. 3/5. Not the worst film I've seen. Performances were a bit forced, the plot was stupid even for a movie about being sucked into a cartoon world to play basketball against an insecure AI, and there's always something odd seeing personalities play fictionalised versions of themselves with fictionalised versions of their families, but I didn't hate it.

Avatar image for wardcleaver
wardcleaver

604

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

The Conversation (1974)

While the main character of the movie-a surveillance expert who is paranoid-is a little on the nose, the overall acting is good. Gene Hackman plays the expert and does a good job of portraying him as aloof and guarded in social situations.

The cast includes Cindy Williams (Laverne & Shirley) Harrison Ford (Every Blockbuster Movie), and Robert Duvall (Godfather, Apocalypse Now). They also do a good job with their respective roles, although they do not get much screen time. This movie is all about Hackman's character.

4/5 listening devices

Avatar image for meierthered
MeierTheRed

6084

Forum Posts

1701

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

#6284  Edited By MeierTheRed

Werewolves Within

Really good movie, much better then what I expected. The cast all do a superb job acting and delivering their lines. Story might not be all that original and the mystery was kind of telegraphed a mile away. But even so a super fun movie.

Avatar image for wollywoo
wollywoo

1049

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

#6285  Edited By wollywoo

The Big Short - 4/4. Or 5/5. Whatever.

This movie put quite an impression on me. Most of all: that money is, kind of, fake. And no less important for being so. The overall tone of the movie was pitch-perfect, eagerly passing on to viewers its mix of exuberance, cynicism, humor, and desperation.

In the film there was a subplot involving Mark Baum's (Steve Carrell) brother's suicide, seemingly completely orthogonal to the overarching plot. I was very curious to find out more about this and what reason the filmmakers thought including such details would have. What narrative purpose does it serve? Is it just shoe-horning in a biographical fact that happens to be very dramatic and capable of generating Oscar buzz?

The reality was more complicated; in fact, Mark Baum was a fictional character based on one Steve Eisman. Eisman had an altogether different, but no less horrifying, personal tragedy, which you can read on Wikipedia, if you must know. Eisman requested the filmmakers not include this detail in the film. The cynical part of me says: it was just too juicy to leave out, regardless of how it fit into the story.

The less cynical part of me thinks that, if not essential, it is at least a kind of key ingredient. It somehow gives a connection between all the scenes of men in suits arguing over how many zeroes a given dollar figure should have and the lives of ordinary people, having much the same brains and body that we have had for the past 200,000 years (or however old you think the human race is.) In-between all the bickering, there is a human cost. What form does that human cost take? Ultimately, the number of decimal places in our bank account has almost nothing to do with our happiness and fulfillment. Somewhere in this film there needed to be that simple element of human tragedy, and with it the possibility of human redemption. In this case it happened to take the form of Mark Baum's brother's suicide. What lesson does it hold? It's up to you.

(but probably, it doesn't take the form: more money = better.)

Avatar image for wollywoo
wollywoo

1049

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

#6286  Edited By wollywoo

Jurassic Park. 7/10. A very entertaining summer blockbuster. I hadn't seen it all the way through since the 90's. The effects still hold up quite well - this movie does not look corny at all, although a few shots here and there look a bit fake. The wounded triceratops in particular looked amazingly real and alive. The acting was pretty good as well, particularly Laura Dern and the two kids. I feel it went on a bit long, though - the second half of the movie goes from one action set-piece to another without much in the way of story progress other than the characters achieving escaping from dinosaurs and achieving their goal of restoring power, and it got a little bit monotonous to me. Somehow I wanted there to be at least one more thematic twist of some kind in the last act other than more running away from scary dinosaurs.

edit: Just noticed that the nerdy character (Wayne Knight aka Newman) is named Nedry. ...Really?

Avatar image for wollywoo
wollywoo

1049

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@tartyron said:

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD

A little scattershot and unfocused, but not out of character for Tarantino. Fantastic soundtrack, fun vignettes, good performances. The ending feels like a historical correction much in the way Inglorious Basterds did. All in all, a solid entry into Tarantino's library and a step up from Hateful Eight. The most obvious and blatant foot fetish shots of his whole career.

I always thought the foot fetish thing with Tarantino was a bit overblown. But on a stroll through a bookstore recently, I came across Taranatino's new novelization of this, and flipping through to a random page, sure enough, he was describing some woman's bare feet. So, maybe it is a thing. But hey, I can appreciate a lady's foot too.

Avatar image for wollywoo
wollywoo

1049

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

The Grand Budapest Hotel - 6/7.

It's hard to know how to evaluate a Wes Andersen film. If you subscribe to the idea that art should be judged only relative to its goals - e.g., you can't rate an action movie on the same scale as a French art film because they have different and incomparable kinds of merit - then Wes Andersen movies are always kind of perfect, because they are exactly what they intend to be, regardless of how much you enjoy them. Fortunately, I generally do enjoy them. Sometimes I wonder what kind of stories he would tell if he wasn't hiding behind a layer of hipster chic and instead produced a more naturalistic story with everyday characters and raw emotions. But what he makes is Wes Andersen movies, and this is the most Wes Andersen movie that Wes ever Andersened. Bravo. It's a great ride.

Avatar image for tartyron
tartyron

788

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

#6289  Edited By tartyron

@wollywoo: I think movies should only be rated, at least numerically, based on the individual viewers tastes and expectations and what was met in that, not an idea that is ever confirmable to the directors intention because as their own person we don’t really know their mind. For all we know, the director could hate his own “best” work. I love David Lynch, I like his version of Dune, and while if don’t think it’s his best work, I think I like it better than he does, considering he famously hates it.

As such, a marvel movie or an art house movie or a marvel/art house movie (it’s coming, I swear, as marvel incorporates all other genres as it grows) might be either a 9/10 or a 3/10 and both are correct, the reviewer is only ever able to express their own opinion. In games it gets a little muddier because you have aspects of technical execution like bugs that don’t effect movies (a movie in a theater isn’t likely to crash to desktop or brick your 3090) and then on top of that ones own tolerance to bugs (Witcher 1 was a great game to me in 2008 but also buggy to the point t I’d never tolerate 2021) compared to what should be generally accepted or not.

Point is, if you like Wes Anderson’s thing, it’s okay to rate high if you like it because it’s up to the reader to agree or disagree with you, not your duty to meet an unknown global expectation. Perhaps you already know this, considering your 6/7 rating and it’s unconventional “7 star” score chart.

For the record, I really like Grand Budapest Hotel as well. I’m a Wes Anderson mark.

Avatar image for wollywoo
wollywoo

1049

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@tartyron Yeah, I actually agree with everything you say. I was being a little bit facetious there, I don't really think it's impossible to rate Wes Andersen movies like you would other films. Really, it's just that sometimes it's a bit hard to know what to make of them. It's his own world, and he makes the rules. Like, in another movie you might say some of the acting choices are "wooden" or "unnatural", but here, it's so obviously intentional that way that it somehow works and within this context you don't question it.

I will say, I think I was a little disappointed that he used made-up countries and alternate history instead of basing it more firmly in reality. I enjoy getting a peak into other times, places and cultures, and this fantasy world doesn't hold as much interest for me as the reality of 20th-century Eastern Europe.

Avatar image for tartyron
tartyron

788

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

PIG (2021)

Not what we thought it was going to be. Instead of a John Wick but with the wacky Nic Cage, we instead got an empathetic meditation of loss and a really good performance by Cage. It’s easy to forget these days that he was, and this still is, a really good actor and the last decade or so of straight to video crap he has done doesn’t mean the talent is gone.

I’m not going to say anything more about the story, just that I think this movies is absolutely worthy of your time. Bring tissues.

Avatar image for humanity
Humanity

21858

Forum Posts

5738

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 40

User Lists: 16

PIG - 4/5

Like mentioned above, this movie was a big surprise. I heard RLM guys be very positive on it and I turned the video off shortly after that and watched the movie. I would advise going in without reading up too much about it because it really isn't what you think it is and thats part of the charm.

Avatar image for infantpipoc
infantpipoc

703

Forum Posts

12

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 44

User Lists: 24

@tartyron: How similar does it feel to Mandy?

Avatar image for tartyron
tartyron

788

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

@infantpipoc: zero. It feels zero the same. It’s a completely different sort of movie.

Avatar image for infantpipoc
infantpipoc

703

Forum Posts

12

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 44

User Lists: 24

@tartyron: Just finished watching it. Nope, nothing like Mandy. Pig is what the Abnormal Mapping duo would call "sad cop show", pretty good performance from all.

Avatar image for daimkhanna
daimkhanna

1

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

#6296  Edited By daimkhanna

Last Movie that I was Watched is F9 that has IMDB rating Less than 6, The latest installment in the Fast & Furious franchise has finally broken the mold again and again. set up with a lot of action, pumped up and thrilling guts.the movie makes no-nonsense attitude of the Fast crew a run for its money.

Avatar image for nodima
Nodima

3878

Forum Posts

24

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 13

User Lists: 0

Surprised to not see more Green Knight talk. Reminded me a lot of The Witcher 3, in that sometimes the moral of the tale is simply that a good tale well told is worth telling. You could apply all kinds of metaphor and allegory to the story, same as people have been doing for centuries, but this version of Green Knight is most comfortably viewed as both refutation and acknowledgement of all that. Honestly a very cool, rare sort of movie to come out in our era of absolutes.

4/5?

Avatar image for 99bajakid
99bajakid

107

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

For some reason Eyes Wide Shut never entered my wheelhouse of movies, I finally saw it for the first time last week and holy shit it was amazing.

Avatar image for wmoyer83
wmoyer83

1166

Forum Posts

1119

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 9

User Lists: 6

Mortal Kombat (2021) - 4/5

This was a good adaptation of the franchise. To my limited knowledge of the lore of the oringinal series, it follows the story somewhat well. It sort of creates a new character as the central protagonist, but he still has ties to the original lore, so it somewhat works. The plot of Mortal Kombat is kind of a dumb concept, and this movie just embraces it. It does not really over explain things, it just does what it does. Its a much more cohesive film than the 90s films. The movie ends with enough wiggle room to introduce a lot of new characters, so it does create a bit of anticipation for the next film. Overall I enjoyed it.

Nobody (2021) - 4/5

This film belongs in the leagues of modern action films the Equalizer and John Wick. It follows the trope of an unassuming man hiding a deceptively violent side a complicated past. The movie is exceptionally violent and brutal in its scenes, but the hook for Hutch Mansell is his duality of also being a good natured person., and can show forgiveness to people. Its often compared to John Wick, but I feeI it has a lighter tone at times, and is a bit more comical. Bob Odenkirk did a fantastic job.

Avatar image for ginormous76
Ginormous76

509

Forum Posts

114

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 11

Guess I'll do a brain dump.

The Green Knight - 0/5 - Nothing happens in this film, the so called "symbolism" is bullocks, it's a morality tale that can't decide what moral it wants to teach. It is NOT in any form an action movie or epic adventure like the trailer suggests. My wife and I kept checking in with the other to make sure we didn't fall asleep and miss something. I kept thinking, "Ok. Something is going to happen. Maybe this next scene."

The Suicide Squad - 4/5 - A really fun movie. If you like James Gunn, you'll enjoy this. My wife and I laughed almost the whole way through, but we both have a pretty macabre sense of humor.

Respect - 4/5 - I learned things about Aretha Franklin that I didn't know. Jennifer Hudson absolutely nails it and is my current front runner for Best Actress Oscar. It drags a little in the middle, mostly in part to fit in more Aretha songs. Also, I missed the news that Aretha died in 2018, so that reveal at the end was a bit surprising. My wife cried during about 50% of this movie and I cried in certain moments for both happy and sad reasons.

Free Guy - 5/5 Some times a movie just hits on all cylinders. This movie was funny, moving, sweet, dramatic and every time I thought I knew what was going to happen, it was something different. I'm glad the trailers didn't give away some of the main plot points of this movie, because it really kept me interested. There's a cameo in this movie that rivals Matt Damon in Eurotrip. I think Damon's cameo still gets the edge, but it's a really good one. My wife's quote coming out of this movie was, "I could watch this every day on tv."