Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[McElroy]

The Suicide Squad
Is it slaughter or just taking the piss? Polka dot's... issues were definitely the highlight of the film for me, because that wasn't just slaughter or taking the piss. Idris Elba as the straight man in all of the action comedy mayhem and nonsense plays out pretty well. His dealings with Viola Davis' Waller were pretty basic at first but became a jarring contrast once all the insane stuff started happening. Margot Robbie has Harley Quinn's role down well enough while the character itself is a magnet for all this "It's just a movie don't think about it" -type of stuff, and that's ultimately not very interesting. 6/10

 

[Piscian]

So some-one mentioned earlier in this thread about how the Amazon film Ice Road felt like it was developed by an A.I. Well Shadow In The Cloud very much feels like that.

Awww someone actually read my post.

So I gave SITC a pass I think 6 or 7/10 and my logic was that I had a good time and it's hard to shit on a movie that you actually enjoyed, like by a lot of peoples estimation Freddy Got Fingered is a great movie because its just fun the whole way through even though its gross nonsensical and stupid. Hell you could even argue Evil Dead 2 is a trashy film.

I agree with everything and specifically no, none of it really works, she's literally so much of a superhero I would dare anyone to stand up and say they didn't expect there to be some twist where it turns out she's bionic or an alien. The whole thing is literally played like shes Buffy the Vampire Slayer or something, she's not even that surprised when the twist happens. I recall that part when she literally breaks her fingers and is just like fucking wolverine, snap that shit back together and go about your day. I literally spent the majority of the movie thinking the basket carried some secret weapon or alien or something because of how insanely overqualified she was at everything.

Also, call me crazy, the dudes in this were misogynistic and racist on a level that was unbelievable even for that time. The dialog had some real wtf, how did that get through screening? moments. They literally joke about raping her at one point.

Theres supposedly an interesting backstory to this film. I'd have to look it up, but I believe it was a hollywood blacklist script written by Max Landis. Its those scripts that are so outlandish that hollywood only pulls them out when they're in fuck it mode. I don't know much about the hatred for Max Landis, but apparently hes on everyones list for being a giant shitbrick or something.

I've heard that they basically threw this film together in a weekend or something which is why the CGI is really inconsistent.

Again all that said, I was entertained. Awful production, but entertaining if you can throw your brain out of the airlock.


On Max Landis -

Max Landis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Xprimentyl]

Respect: Good / Great

Biopic on the life and times of Soul singer Aretha Franklin.

Not a huge fan of biopics about musical artists (mostly because the only ones that make for interesting stories are the SAME story, i.e.: early childhood abuse that leads to permission of adulthood spousal abuse and eventually alcohol/drug abuse,) but this was fairly decent. Not much unexpected happens; pretty much everything is telegraphed with the subtlety of a softball pitcher pitching under water in slow-motion, but its story is conveyed effectively. Jennifer Hudson does do the legendary diva justice, I will say.

 

[Agema]

Hell you could even argue Evil Dead 2 is a trashy film.

It depends what we mean by trashy.

Trashy can just mean bad. It can also mean sort of cheap, tacky, and garish. In the latter sense, Evil Dead 2 is trashy - it is very much B-movie horror. It's also very good, because it has a superb creative team, director and perfectly cast lead to make a shlocky, over-the-top romp extremely entertaining.

 

[Agema]

Also, call me crazy, the dudes in this were misogynistic and racist on a level that was unbelievable even for that time. The dialog had some real wtf, how did that get through screening? moments. They literally joke about raping her at one point.

How "unbelievable" is the racism going to be from the 1940s in a country that denied many black people the vote, had let mobs burn down black people's property and drove them out of towns, lynched them, segregated them? They didn't even permit black aircrew until the 1940s, and even then segregated them into their own squadrons (with white officers, naturally). I figure a great deal of racism is believable. Similarly, plenty of men happily joke about sexually assaulting women now in these supposedly enlightened times, much as that may be indulged as "locker room" banter. Do you think they'd really have that much of a problem in the rather less woman-friendly 1940s?

I wonder whether a lot of younger people these days possibly just don't realise quite how bad it was in the old days.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

How "unbelievable" is the racism going to be from the 1940s in a country that denied many black people the vote, had let mobs burn down black people's property and drove them out of towns, lynched them, segregated them? They didn't even permit black aircrew until the 1940s, and even then segregated them into their own squadrons (with white officers, naturally). I figure a great deal of racism is believable. Similarly, plenty of men happily joke about sexually assaulting women now in these supposedly enlightened times, much as that may be indulged as "locker room" banter. Do you think they'd really have that much of a problem in the rather less woman-friendly 1940s?

I wonder whether a lot of younger people these days possibly just don't realise quite how bad it was in the old days.

The context for the rape joke comments is they're aware she's on the radio / comms at the time and listening in, not just them making the jokes, it's shameless not giving a shit stuff.

 

[McElroy]

I wonder whether a lot of younger people these days possibly just don't realise quite how bad it was in the old days.

In this context you are young too and know just as little. I bet people try their best to exaggerate the attitudes of the past to make themselves feel more virtuous.

 

[Gyrobot]

Free Guy

Pretty much a Ryan Reynolds audition for Marvel Studio as the fourth wall is shot, portal gunned and then recombined as a corporate

The fact covid delayed the movie made certain references hit harder. See Takita as Antoine who reminds me of a certain company in a shit storm

Ironic that Millie reminds me of how EA likes to think of themselves these days, distancing themsleves from the EA brand and going back to Electronic Arts and how the original concept is basically the Sims

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare & Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

The resemblance is uncanny. Both are "final chapters" (except they weren't) and both end with the lead bogeyman being stabbed to death by a female descendant (Freddy's daughter, Jason's niece), who for lore reasons is the only one who can kill them for good. Both movies also were originally meant to star returning male characters: Alice's "Dream Child" was gonna be the John Doe that gets killed by Freddy, while Tommy Jarvis was gonna be the male lead in the Friday movie.

Both also suck. I suppose Jason Goes to Hell is the better movie on its own, but Freddy's Dead is the better final chapter of the two. A Jason movie with almost no Jason feels like a scam, and turning him into a parasitic slug monster misses the point of the character. Freddy's Dead at least feels more cohesive with the rest of the series... but it features downright embarrassing CG and a cheap 3D gimmick, on top of some of the worst acting in the series, horrible 90s buttrock and Loony Tunes level sound design. Props for the Twin Peaks reference though, which feeds into my theory that Twin Peaks is David Lynch's take on the original Nightmare on Elm Street.

 

[Agema]

In this context you are young too and know just as little. I bet people try their best to exaggerate the attitudes of the past to make themselves feel more virtuous.

Yes and no. I do not have experience of the 1940s, but I have more experience of how attitudes have changed than millennials do to give me more perspective, and it's evident to me that many millennials are pretty clueless even what the 1980s were like. So it is an "unbelievable" "exaggeration", or it is reasonable representation of attitudes that were much more common decades ago, surprising to an audience unprepared for it?

The other thing to bear in mind is that it's not just the baggage that the creators bring in, it's the baggage that the viewer does. You demonstrate such baggage with "I bet people try their best to exaggerate the attitudes of the past to make themselves feel more virtuous" - that's quite a statement of intent. As do the people who approach every film with a hypercompetent female lead with terms like "woke", "Mary Sue", and a whole host of other complaints, because it is now a big thing for some quarters of the population to look out for and complain about what they perceive to be woke moralising - where they'd have watched a film with an equivalently hypercompetent male without batting an eyelid.

What I would suggest is much more common than exaggerating to make people feel more virtuous is that creators actually diminish the unsavoury attitudes of the past in order to make a product more smoothly fitting to the attitudes to the contemporary audience they are selling to. There are plenty of recent pulpy WW2 movies with black servicemen in mixed-race units, but I know perfectly well that in reality black servicemen were segregated into their own units in the US military (with white officers of course). But we now expect movies to not be too white, so we gloss over the historical inaccuracy of dropping non-whites in where they wouldn't be, and the racism gets shoved well out of the way to not detract from the story. Some people complain about this too, of course. But like I said, to a certain extent whether a reviewer raises complaints or not is telling us more about the reviewer than it is about the film.

 

[McElroy]

What I would suggest is much more common than exaggerating to make people feel more virtuous is that creators actually diminish the unsavory attitudes of the past in order to make a product more smoothly fitting to the attitudes to the contemporary audience they are selling to.

Who knows, maybe it already happened before. Maybe Charade is made funnier by the fact that Cary Grant treats Audrey Hepburn respectfully, while Sean Connery in Goldfinger is showing us the "real" attitudes of the times once a man had power. Now that I think about it, times have changed so that the basis for the role of a woman is closer to that of a man, but what makes a nasty person is pretty much the same. Sometimes in a modern movie -- such as in Shadow in the Cloud it seems -- the nastiness (overt sexist and racist behavior) is baked into the past zeitgeist the art depicts. Like it naturally follows. Creators try to have their cake and eat it too. The formula is really simple:
1) Put in more or less accurate underlying sexism that people in the past wouldn't have thought twice about so that the time period's attitudes are addressed.
2) Because nowadays that stuff would be appalling to almost everyone you make sure that the attitude doesn't go unpunished.
3) Make those characters bastards anyways so they deserve their comeuppance.
It's pretty bonkers. Patty Jenkins got shit for not doing enough of that in WW84. Either having or eating the cake should be plenty.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Free Guy

Ryan Reynolds continues his brand of mild irreverence chased with every feel good cliché in the basket. There's some fun background humor/visual gags, some funny hard cuts between in-world awesomeness and everyday mundanity, and I guess the characters are affable enough... but the melange of action/comedy/romance/sci-fi means nothing really stands out. Cameras whipping around big busy CGI vistas while the characters stand in the middle not interacting with anything just isn't impressive anymore.

The whole They Live angle (put on sunglasses to see the world for what it is) is wasted and the anticorporate sentiment feels as disingenuous as when Ready Player One did it. And the romcom aspect was kinda cute but dated and builds to a switcheroo that I don't think most people are going to like.

Saw this this morning and actually really enjoyed it. I really like Ryan Reynolds because he approaches things like he genuinely gives a shit. The push he made to make Deadpool great shows that and so does Free Guy.

While it isnt a perfect video game based film. Eeynolds shows rhat while he might not 100% understand he knows enough to treat it with respect.

The in universe version of GTA online bounces off the same exact idea Yathzee had in Mogworld and turns it into a fun 2 hours film.

It wasnt as 4th wall breaking and didnt have quite as many inside jokes (unless you count the cringy use of real Streamers like Ninja and Pokimane) it was a fun and straightforward adventure that i thought it was about as good as it could have been.

 

[BrawlMan]

A Jason movie with almost no Jason feels like a scam, and turning him into a parasitic slug monster misses the point of the character.

New line basically ripped off themselves by copying The Hidden, and another movie that came out in 1989 called Shocker. The latter even has the plot line of relative of the serial killer being the one to end him for good. Ironic, because Wes Craven and Universal were trying to hop on the slasher craze and start another franchise. Luckily, the film ends in a satisfying self-contained way. There are elements of Nightmare in there, because of the use of dreams, visions, and the fact that Horace Pinker makes a deal with the devil before being executed to get his powers. Pinker uses electricity to posses people.

 

[Samtemdo8]

I just watched Total Recall (The Arnold One) for the first time

How the fuck did I not watch this movie sooner.Paul Verhoeven of Robocop and Starship Troopers fame.

This movie is a cheesy action sci fi flick and I love it.

Also, IT DID THE RED PILL THING FIRST, YOU FUCKING HACKS WACHOWSKIS

 

[Baffle]

Godzilla: King of Monsters. 10/10, would accept the world ending this way as I hate my job.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Godzilla: King of Monsters. 10/10, would accept the world ending this way as I hate my job.

This was the best film out of the new trilogy for sure. I cant wait for the 5headed dragon to explode out of a mountain to kill us all.

 

[Gordon_4]

This was the best film out of the new trilogy for sure. I cant wait for the 5headed dragon to explode out of a mountain to kill us all.

As ways to go, its pretty metal.

 

[CriticalGaming]

As ways to go, its pretty metal.

Fuck yeah. Id rather die to a giant dragon than something like butthole cancer.

 

[McElroy]

Liberty Guy Online

For both good and bad, Free Guy is the most derivative movie ever made. It's a comedy recycling video game -related jokes from the 21st century. It's at times a straightforward romcom complete with the supporting characters being incredibly dense so that the plot goes on for longer. Guy brings some creativity into the action clichés, but their main idea is still the expected "we're in a video game! so cool and random!" The sci-fi technobabble is grating, but thankfully there isn't too much of it.

The movie is carried by Ryan Reynolds as Guy, an NPC bank teller in a GTA Online / Fortnite pastiche called Free City. Reynolds makes the best out of his character and it's a joy to watch him go through the aforementioned clichés (though the inevitable family movie moments are too much even for him). Supporting Guy is his trusty security guard Buddy, who has his belt down by the ankles at any excuse.

The IRL characters are paper thin. Jodie Comer plays Millie, a character who can only exist in a movie, every guy's (hehe, get it?) dream cutie who looks immaculately made up in every scene including the "real world" ones, but who is also a girl in game design so she's held back by... uh... They actually kinda just brush that off. Joe Keery (Steve from Stranger Things) doesn't get to joke around as the genius-but-humble-idealist game designer Keys, but we get to see him as a cop with a porn stache. Taika Waititi's Antwan (yeah, that's how it's spelled) is a hammy sketch character.

It's like if The Lego Movie was in GTA Online or if Truman was trapped in a video game instead of Seahaven. Free Guy lifts a great deal from these two movies. The empty fluff (such as the cameo roles of game streaming personalities doing - along with actors - these real world reaction bits that are unbelievably fake) make it so the movie isn't about anything really. At least not more than "Don't be stuck and go for your dreams." wow. such original. Still a fun movie. Just remember that there are no respawns or saves in the real life. 6/10

 

[bluegate]

Made the mistake of seeing Fast & Furious 9.

As to be expected, dumb as fuck movie.