Rate the last movie you watched.

Fast X 8/10 as the action from top to bottom saved this film from the lousy plot! Nice to see Rita Moreno as she looks awesome for her age.

Polite Society 7.5/10 - The villain was almost animated Disney-esque in her facial expressions...great performance. And the film was funny as hell.

Across the Spider-verse (8/10)

The movie is somewhat too long and not long enough. Many people were aware it is only part 1 of 2, but if you are not, you should know the story is cut short, and the cliffhanger, while efective, is somehow annoying. The characterization is pretty strong, although some characters like Miles suffer due to an increased focus on others, like Gwen and Miles' parents.

In the end, those things make me think it is not as strong as the first one, and that takes some points.

Visually though, this movie is incredible. It makes the first one look basic and subdue by comparison. I even think they worked on it until the very last moment, because frames in the trailers look a LOT better on the screen; so if you were impressed by the scenes of the spiderverse in promotional material, believe me, you haven't seen nothing yet.

Double Jeopardy [1999] (6/10) and A Perfect Murder [1998] (7/10)

Two similar films, but both worth watching. Especially since one stars Tommy Lee Jones and the other Michael Douglas.

Creed III 9/10

Easily the best film in the franchise so far. Many people thought it would fail because Stallone was not in it, but it turns out he wasn't needed as Michael B Jordan and Jonathan Majors carried the whole film and did a great job. The rest of the cast also did a great job, including the girl who played Adonis Creed's daughter.

Avatar: The Way of Water 8/10

Good sequel to the original film that focuses on family and revenge. The CGI is beautiful and seamless, to the point you can't tell where the CGI begins and the live action ends. There isn't much else to say without possibly spoiling things are its a long film that is nearly 3 and a half hours. But once you get into the story and the visuals, the time goes by quickly. Its not hard to see why these films make so much money, despite it seemingly having a lot of detractors.

Watched the French-Senegalese world war 1 film "Father & Soldier" (Tirailleurs) a few weeks ago. Interesting premise with a father and son from a Senegalese village who are forcibly "recruited" by the French to fight on the western front in 1917, with the two trying to find the means to return home. Sadly that premise is squandered by editing that jumps around wildly in time, never letting us know any of the characters, barely letting us know what's going on in the war, and being pretty poor at building tension. Lots of people just running around in the open without the slighest hint of the mud, snipers, gas and mines that tends to be all over WW1 stories. All around it's weirdly anonymously presented despite being such a personal story. 3-ish/5

Evil Dead Rise - 8/10

Great atmosphere throughout with fantastic violence and gore from start to finish. The movie knows what it is and just goes all in on the bat crap craziness.

Across the Spider-Verse: 9/10

I’m a sucker for every single visual decision this team made in the first film and then expanded upon in this sequel. Absolutely breathtaking visual styles and motifs.

The story is fine and if there’s a knock on the movie, it’s that it’s so visually overwhelming that I had to be very intentional about paying attention to the dialogue and plot, so as not to lose the thread as I soaked in the details presented in each frame.

I had to see it twice to appreciate the entire creative work.

Across the Spiderverse

9.8/10

Go watch it. Seriously. I'm going to watch it in theaters again.

This movie is beautiful in every way

As someone who never got into comic books, it was incredible being able to experience comic books in the way a kid must have felt reading comic books

Tár. It's great. Hard to know what to make of this one. It's a musical version of the "fall from greatness" genre of biopic films like Citizen Kane, The Aviator, etc. Lydia Tár is a total egoist who believes that she is "obliterating the self" while she is actually very self-serving and manipulative of everyone around her in subtle or not-so-subtle ways. I was totally caught off guard by the surprisingly hilarious ending after 2.5 hours of highbrow drama. After getting dethroned from her post as conductor of the Berlin Orchestra due to numerous scandals, and running on stage to beat the crap out of the conductor that replaced her, Lydia is reduced to the (for her) ultimate humiliation - conducting for a Monster Hunter orchestra in the Philippines.

Evil Dead Rises - 6/10

A few gory scenes that made me uneasy, but otherwise a standard horror movie that doesn't do anything new and somewhat predictable.

Manchester by the Sea. I'd say it deserves all the accolades it got. For the most part it doesn't feel like you are watching a movie - it feels like you are peaking into the lives of some ordinary people who have to deal with the worst kind of tragedy. The dialogue feels very real and there's not an ounce of pretence. It never feels like the movie is manipulating you into any forced emotion. You just observe and draw your own conclusions. In the end, there are no easy answers, but there is some hope to be had.

Extraction 2: 7/10

A decent sequel to the original Netflix exclusive action film. Some of the action highlights were really entertaining to watch.

Evil Dead Rises: 7/10

An okay horror film. Lots of gore and Evil Dead like craziness, but outside of that, the film wasn't anything special. But I guess hardcore Evil Dead fans will love it.

Violent Night: 9/10

A great action film, where Santa Claus kicks ass, but we all know this. What makes the film stand out is how well done it is. It's a nice combination of Diehard and Home Alone. Both films are even referenced at different parts. A lot of the comedy bits also hit well and I found myself laughing at a good number of scenes.

Top Gun: Maverick. 3/5.

Overall, it was an entertaining popcorn flick. I'm sure a good time was had by all in theaters. It can be a bit corny at times, though. It's a real pastiche of Hollywood cliches (which is not necessarily a bad thing.) I've never seen the first Top Gun and never had any interest at all in the franchise until this one started getting such good reviews, but it presumably follows a similar plot structure. It's essentially a "war" movie that is actually a sports movie, with the grizzled coach coming back from retirement and slowly earning the respect of the new generation with his unorthodox training methods and memorable speeches about the importance of teamwork and the catch-phrases that get repeated at the climax. Except that since it's Tom Cruise, the coach ends up playing in the Big Game at the end and doing all the heavy lifting for the team while the other team members are mostly left watching him do the cool stuff and saying "holy shit" over and over. There's also not a little amount of Star Wars: A New Hope in some very specific moments. But that's coming full circle, since Star Wars was of course inspired by war movies like The Dam Busters. There are also some elements of a buddy cop movie thrown in there, including the whole "you're a loose cannon. I'll have your badge..." thing. Again, the tropes aren't necessarily bad to include, but they did make me roll my eyes on occasion.

The ending is pretty exciting, but holy shit if doesn't stretch credulity. Why is there a Tomcat just sitting there on the enemy's runway waiting to be stolen? (edit: this is apparently explained in the beginning of the movie, but I watched the beginning many weeks ago and didn't remember. The real-life counterpart is that Iran still has Tomcats leftover from the pre-revolutionary era when the Shah was best buds with the USA. But it still stretches credulity that it happened to be right there and so easily broken into and flown.) Also, why does everything look so much like northern California or the Pacific Northwest when it's presumably in North Korea or some other Asian country? Speaking of which, I wish this movie had the guts to actually name the enemy nation, but I guess I can't blame the studio for not wanting to stir up some international incident like "The Interview" did.

The special effects are impressive, but I guess I'm not enough of a cinephile or aviation enthusiast to appreciate them fully. I know Tom and his friends were really up there in the jets, but I can't help but thinking that... I wouldn't be able to tell the difference if they were in cockpits on the ground with sufficiently good green screen effects.

Anyway, fun movie, watch it with your brain off.

No Country for Old Men. Well, well, this is basically a perfect movie. Cormac McCarthy and the Coen Brothers are an ideal match. It's apparently pretty close to the novel, but it's exactly the kind of story they like to tell. Seeing it years ago I remember it being deathly serious, and it is, but there are touches of the darkest kind of humor throughout which occasionally made me burst out laughing in-between the moments of suspense. All of it commands your attention. I'm sure if I happened to see this come on TV, I would drop whatever I was doing and watch. It's not the kind of film that you need to force yourself to focus on to appreciate - it's the kind of movie that you would have to intentionally distract yourself from in order to not be drawn into. I suppose my only "complaint" is that at some points the dialogue seems a little too literary - this is not how people talk when there is someone trying to kill them. But then, why would it need to be realistic? It would be like complaining that Shakespeare's dialogue is in iambic pentameter. It's art. And it works.

Edit: On that last point, Roger Ebert said it better than I could: "The movie also loves some of its characters, and pities them, and has an ear for dialog not as it is spoken but as it is dreamed." Man, I miss him.

I have just watched yesterday Pinocchio by Guillermo Del Toro's (netflix)
this was amazing and made me even cry in the end a little, though I am not realy an emotional person

Barbie (3/5)

Mostly entertaining and in parts funny. However a majority of the humor leaned too hard into fourth wall breaking nostalgia and cultural references. Robbie and Gosling seemed to enjoy themselves and Ferrell and McKinnon slipped into their type-cast roles well enough. The set and costume design was a delight.

The ending felt quite sloppy and there would have been room to cut ten minutes off of the runtime. The long speeches, of which there are many, rarely said anything new and at some points I became a bit bored.

What pains me the most is that this is a two hour commercial trying to disguise itself in a smokescreen of a progressive political message. While I do agree with the general messages of the movie, it's not convincing at all to hear multi-million dollar Hollywood production like this based on one of the most successful toy properties in history preach how corporations and the patriarchy are evil. The shoehorned car commercial segments and other shining product placement bits made it all the worse.

Indiana Jones Dial of Destiny 8/10

Knock at the Cabin: 7/10

M. Night's latest psychological horror film. Its about a family vacationing in the woods, suddenly getting home invaded by a bunch of fanatics who believe the world is ending soon. Of course, its not that simple, and you'll likely see the M. Night plot twist coming a mile away. The film is still good, however, because of the strong acting performances of the cast. The stand out among them being Dave Batista who once again proves he has genuine acting range and is right where he belongs now.

They Cloned Tyrone: 9/10

A surprisingly very good and deep comedy that I cant even go too much into without dropping a potential spoiler. But there is a reason the film is currently getting a lot of buzz. It's on Netflix. So watch it and judge for yourself if you have it.

After all the hype and box office numbers, I finally get to watch Oppenheimer. Actually, I watched it twice because I thought I missed something everybody else seemed to have gotten and yet still don't see why this movie is so hyped

Oppenheimer- 3 out of 10

I don't understand the hype for it. Yes, I understand his impact on the world. I just don't get why this boring ass movie is so critically acclaimed. To me, it's just another overrated hunk o' shit like Titanic.

Knock at the Cabin - 6 out of 10. I was interested throughout, wife said Shyamalan has lost it.

Scream VI - 8/10

Did not realize they put out another one is almost a year after the last one. Decent slasher.

Barbie 5/10-Only acting and funny silly scenes saved it

Oppenheimer 9/10-Cillian Murphy has finally arrived

Haunted Mansion 8/10-Cute but silly movie

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning-6/10 Not the best but not the worst

Fantastic beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is really boring. They took a tiny bit of story and made the movie super long, almost two-and-a-half hours.

Watched "The Covenant" a couple nights ago, i would give it a 7/10. Seemed a little rushed towards the end though in my opinion.

Guardian of galaxy Vol. 3 is undoubtedly one of the most ambitious MCU films, in both scope and narrative reach.

@waseemrana: I watched Guardians of galaxy Vol. 3 a couple weeks back, i have heard people saying its the worst of all 3 Vol's but personally i liked it.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 8/10

Easily the best film in the series, and an example on how you end a trilogy. Lots of great action and a touching story centered around Rocket Racoon.

Trespass 3/5

Hostage did it better, but this wasn't bad. Just very bad acting all the way around.

Barbie (5/5)

Its is a movie that in my mind is exactly what it should have been. - I loved it. It was nicely produced, it had a great message, it was often more clever than you would think. This is a great way to approach the material and backstory of a toy....where Transformers and GI Joe totally missed the point - Barbie gets it. Everyone is my friend group, from form 24 to 61, enjoyed the movie.

If you did not like it, that is fine. But, in the words of a elementary school kid:

I literally don’t even careeee uhh

Gone Girl -- 8.5/10

Absolutely brilliant movie. I was hooked to the very end. All I can say is after watching that movie I am more afraid of women now.

Spider-Man Across the Spider-verse - 4/5

Did not know anything about the structure of the trilogy, so was delightfully surprised by the ending.

Robocop (the Verhoeven one) - EVERYTHING/999

Bought the trilogy the other day so had to make sure the disc worked. I'm not sure what the differences are between theatrical and director's cuts but that film is outstanding. No filler, all the hits and each watch has me spotting something new. Peter Weller's facial expressions during the cocaine factory shootout are phenomenal.

It's also like six genres at once.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie. 3/5. Well, it's a pretty fun watch. I wasn't expecting much in terms of pathos but the relationship between the Brothers is done pretty well. All the references are fun - interesting how it tends to skew toward the most recent Mario games instead of having a lot of nods to 8-bit era Mario.

It seems a little weird to use *forced marriage* as the major threat for a kids' movie in 2023. This will probably go over the kids' heads, but isn't it a little... rape-y in its implications? And yeah I know this was directly from Mario Odyssey, even including the specific outfits. It was kinda weird there too. Also, Jack Black's song is super annoying.

An Haunting in Venice 9/10

The Equalizer 3 10/10!

Gran Turismo. 7/10

You've seen this movie before. But sometimes you just need to put enough of your own spin on a tried and true formula to find success. This is that. Its a cool enough story that it manages to stay engaging enough through most of its run time. It has the most basic bitch rivalry you could possibly imagine that largely falls into the background, only to remind you during a race. However, that works for this movie because Jaan's greatest rival is himself as he tries to acclimate to the world of being a real race car driver. The 3rd act is about what you would expect from a movie like this so I started losing interest by the end, though the first 2/3rds of it and the cast is charming enough to make it work. I quite liked the flourishes of the GT game elements that pop up on screen.

It deserves a spot in the 'good video game movie' list.

The Flash

7/10

Aside for Ezra Miller being hilarious as both Barry Allen's and Michael Keaton as Batman it was alright.

The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster

3/5

The first half of this movie got me really engaged as it tried presenting an idea that challenges science and how we see/think of the world. The last half doesn't hold up it's end of the bargain as it becomes a mild horror flick.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

1/5

Could just not get into this one. The long runtime certainly didn't help any.