Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[Johnny Novgorod]

Happy Death Day

A sorority chick is stuck in a time loop on her birthday, which also has her repeatedly being murdered by a masked villain. We never find out what's causing the time loop, which is just as well, but it bothered me that the slasher plot seems to be completely unrelated. I guess if you're gonna be stuck in a time loop it might as well be the day you die, so at least you get enough tries to figure out how not to. But then the girl abandons perfectly valid strategies a little too soon without trying to fine tune them first (like those montages of Phil "savescumming" throughout Groundhog Day). Critically, not once does she even try to unmask the killer. It's a suicide move? Big deal, you have inifinite lives. Until the plot says maybe you don't, but let's skim over that inconsistency too.

I lost some interest in the movie as soon as I realized that there were no rules and things would simply happen as needed. It's still a fun movie, leaning more on black comedy than slasher scares, and I really liked Jessica Rothe as the lead. Even in this silly movie she gets to flex some decent acting range and carries the whole movie no problem. She comes across as a perfect storm of dry, funny, trainwreck and self-defeating bravado.

 

[faeyr]

Logan Lucky (2017)

A fun heist film with some genuine feel good moments. Steven Soderbergh's direction is stylish without being distracting. Solid script and good performances from Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, and especially Daniel Craig. Good for a date night, or if you just want some relief from the existential dread of the moment. Maybe a 7.5 or 8 out of 10 if that helps.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Logan Lucky (2017)

A fun heist film with some genuine feel good moments. Steven Soderbergh's direction is stylish without being distracting. Solid script and good performances from Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, and especially Daniel Craig. Good for a date night, or if you just want some relief from the existential dread of the moment. Maybe a 7.5 or 8 out of 10 if that helps.

That was an unexpectedly heartwarming movie. Love the recital at the end.

 

[Hawki]

That was an unexpectedly heartwarming movie. Love the recital at the end.

The recital thing is cute, but it got me wondering about things. Like, Milly spends all this time prettying her up, and she instead sings a different song that didn't need prettying up for, and despite the lack of any rehersal, still wins the prize.

 

[Kae]

Blade Runner 2049

So I decided to re-watch this movie and it's really surprising that what most certainly started production as a corporate cash-grab for nostalgia with the movie being a sequel that came out 35 years after the original beloved but blockbuster failure, yet it still managed to be a deeply heartfelt story with wonderful cinematography, it honestly is about as good as a sequel can get and having re-watched the original just a few months ago which I still love BTW, thinking on it I think I like 2049 more than the original film.

That isn't to say it's necessarily a better movie, but just the fact that the argument can be made is downright astounding considering how other revivals and remakes have turned out, especially for Cyberpunk, in any case I think I just like it more because Joe & Joi's story resonates much more with me than Deckard's, not to mention what a beautiful story it is, I know you're supposed to doubt their love because they are machines and Joi was designed to say exactly what their users wanted to hear but it just feels so authentic an sincere, besides I can't deny that I dislike the chosen-one trope so having Joe's story turn out like that, honestly it felt quite brilliant.

Also Joe goes by K due to his serial number starting with that, I have been going by K on the web since like 2007 so I guess there's bias there too.

 

[Hawki]

Also Joe goes by K due to his serial number starting with that, I have been going by K on the web since like 2007 so I guess there's bias there too.

I suppose that also explains why you've got an oversized pistol in your hands as well. 0_0

 

[Kae]

I suppose that also explains why you've got an oversized pistol in your hands as well. 0_0

Pffft. it's just a gun that judges people, it decides if you deserve to live and die, that's it.

Spoiler: This is what it looks like when it decides you deserve to die, WARNING extreme gore.

It's from an Anime called Psycho Pass, if you like Cyberpunk the 1st season is seriously fantastic and everything else is un-needed, but it's basically about an Orwellian society controlled by a super computer, which apparently is so good at psychoanalysis that it's able to accurately determine people's job aptitudes and even if they are going to be criminals, of course rookie detective Akane Tsunemori (Pictured in Avatar) thinking the computer is being too harsh takes action in her own hands and does what she thinks is right, causing her to discover an inconsistency in the system's judgement, and well things move one from there.

I highly recommend the 1st season, the 2nd season is absolute garbage though, everything else is serviceable but it never is as good as Season 1, probably because the lead writer only returned for the 1st movie, which is OK but has so much Engrish that there was actually a fan cut made by editing together the audio from the Japanese version and English version in order to make the movie watchable without laughing, if you do decide to watch that, the superior fan cut is called Engrish Annihilation Edition.

 

[BrawlMan]

That isn't to say it's necessarily a better movie, but just the fact that the argument can be made is downright astounding considering how other revivals and remakes have turned out, especially for Cyberpunk, in any case I think I just like it more because Joe & Joi's story resonates much more with me than Deckard's, not to mention what a beautiful story it is, I know you're supposed to doubt their love because they are machines and Joi was designed to say exactly what their users wanted to hear but it just feels so authentic an sincere, besides I can't deny that I dislike the chosen-one trope so having Joe's story turn out like that, honestly it felt quite brilliant.

I'd argue that 2049 is the better movie. I like the original, but sometimes it could get dull, and Deckard could be kinda of an ass at times. That was the point, but I found K and Joi's relationship more engaging. Despite coming in to question and some ambiguity, it's clear they genuinely cared for each other. It's obvious that Joi grew beyond her programming.

 

[McElroy]

The Player
8/10

Hollywood satire from 1992. Pretty cool, pretty meta, expertly shot and edited and to top it off there are a lot of cameos. Tim Robbins and car phones, can't get more nineties than that.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

I'd argue that 2049 is the better movie. I like the original, but sometimes it could get dull, and Deckard could be kinda of an ass at times. That was the point, but I found K and Joi's relationship more engaging. Despite coming in to question and some ambiguity, it's clear they genuinely cared for each other. It's obvious that Joi grew beyond her programming.

You can't really criticize the original Blade Runner for getting dull but not the sequel. 2049 has a lot of scenes that take longer and play out slower than they need to. That being said, it's still a really good movie. But not, in my opinion, as good as the first one. If only for how underwhelming the soundtrack is in comparison. For all that 2049 has going for it, there is a huge, Vangelis shaped hole in it.

 

[BrawlMan]

You can't really criticize the original Blade Runner for getting dull but not the sequel. 2049 has a lot of scenes that take longer and play out slower than they need to. That being said, it's still a really good movie. But not, in my opinion, as good as the first one. If only for how underwhelming the soundtrack is in comparison. For all that 2049 has going for it, there is a huge, Vangelis shaped hole in it.

I never implied it wasn't. I don't know what it is, but 2049 s longer seems didn't bother me for some reason. And for the record, I've never seen the theatrical cut of blade runner. It's always been the final cut version for me. I don't know why, but that's just how it is for me. Like I said though, still love the original.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Circle (2015)

50 people stand around a circle in a mysterious room that kills one of them every couple of minutes. Step out of your spot and you die. Touch someone else and you die. They quickly realize all they can do is vote who gets killed off next, and you don't know who's it until it happens (with buzzers and a game show-like ticking clock for added suspense). The entire movie is this mob of (increasingly thinning) strangers figuring out what's going on, what are the rules of the situation and is there any way to survive it. I like these closed room scenarios and the premise is ready-made intriguing. The acting is a bit flaky here and there and the dialogue gets a little too on the nose as leaders come and go and we cross out the checklist of mob mentality. But it was engrossing while it lasted.

 

[Kae]

You can't really criticize the original Blade Runner for getting dull but not the sequel. 2049 has a lot of scenes that take longer and play out slower than they need to. That being said, it's still a really good movie. But not, in my opinion, as good as the first one. If only for how underwhelming the soundtrack is in comparison. For all that 2049 has going for it, there is a huge, Vangelis shaped hole in it.

I never implied it wasn't. I don't know what it is, but 2049 s longer seems didn't bother me for some reason. And for the record, I've never seen the theatrical cut of blade runner. It's always been the final cut version for me. I don't know why, but that's just how it is for me. Like I said though, still love the original.

That's the beauty of it, I'm personally just happy that we got such a good movie, it's clear that not only the director but also the production staff understood what Blade Runner was and they did a fantastic job of telling their own story in a framework that perfectly fits the world set-up by the original while making sure to make the events of the original very important to the plot while not drowning it nostalgia, it's the reason why we can have this argument and I think that's great.

In any case they both have their strong-points and weak points, I'd argue that 2049 has a much weaker antagonist to the original considering just how great of a character was Roy Batty, that isn't to say that Wallace & Luv are shallow or bad, I just guess that Tyrell was right and Roy's light just shines twice as bright, also they get a lot less character development, sow while I'd argue that the antagonist's in the original are much stronger I'd also argue that the protagonists in 2049 are far more interesting and intriguing that Deckard and Rachel, though I'll admit that argument is harder to make as they're both strong characters, but I just find the complacent nature of a Replicant that knows he's a replicant but still kills others for work, and how he justifies it by basically faith, by telling himself that since they are androids they have no souls, I don't know, I think it's an intriguing concept, but it's not just that it's every single layer, the fact that it's clear that Joi I genuinely can't tell if Joi telling Joe he's special at the smallest trace of evidence is because she wishes to be special and she's projecting, he's just special to her and as such she assumes he must be special in a grand-scale or it's just her programming reflecting on Joe's own desires after all her ad claims she tells you what you want to hear, maybe it's all 3, basically I could spend all day talking about just Joe & Joi, and yes I refer to him as Joe despite his credit reading K, because it's basically a name symbolic of their free will and love, so you know even what you call the main character tells you a lot of what you got from the film.

I guess all I can say it's that it's hard to not love both but PsychedelicDiamond is right about the score, it's lacking and forgettable especially when compared with Vangelis's score which is quite frankly a masterpiece, and I won't deny that I often listen to it on it's own which isn't really something 2049's score has ever inspired on me.

 

[McElroy]

Extraction

It's a lot like Sicario 2. One mercenary (Chris Hemsworth) is on a mission to rescue a kidnapped son of a drug lord, but things get hairy as his team gets ambushed. The plot isn't complicated and it's politics free (film is set in Dhaka, Bangladesh of all places), and we get some traditional dramatics especially near the end when the action becomes regular target shooting. And it is a disappointment, because about halfway through the film we get some Birdman trickery (some of it not too subtle) and with it an action/chase scene that's a real damn thrill. 6/10 for a mediocre film, but I'll give it that because Hemsworth didn't phone it in.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

You can't really criticize the original Blade Runner for getting dull but not the sequel. 2049 has a lot of scenes that take longer and play out slower than they need to. That being said, it's still a really good movie. But not, in my opinion, as good as the first one. If only for how underwhelming the soundtrack is in comparison. For all that 2049 has going for it, there is a huge, Vangelis shaped hole in it.

I don't know, the soundtrack was more interesting to me in that it wasn't really music as much as it is an almost constant rising and falling moan of an unimaginably vast machine, possibly hinting the time for artist expression has long since given way to the weight of a diminished and failed humanity only just surviving on the various flailing systems they've relied upon through sheer inertion. I thought it made the experience more memorable and hypnotic, like the weird twisty violin soundtrack in Under The Skin.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Rampage

A dumb blockbuster with The Rock, a CGI silverback and Negan from TWD who - like The Rock - can only do the one thing, apparently.

 

[happyninja42]

Blade Runner 2049

So I decided to re-watch this movie and it's really surprising that what most certainly started production as a corporate cash-grab for nostalgia with the movie being a sequel that came out 35 years after the original beloved but blockbuster failure, yet it still managed to be a deeply heartfelt story with wonderful cinematography, it honestly is about as good as a sequel can get and having re-watched the original just a few months ago which I still love BTW, thinking on it I think I like 2049 more than the original film.

That isn't to say it's necessarily a better movie, but just the fact that the argument can be made is downright astounding considering how other revivals and remakes have turned out, especially for Cyberpunk, in any case I think I just like it more because Joe & Joi's story resonates much more with me than Deckard's, not to mention what a beautiful story it is, I know you're supposed to doubt their love because they are machines and Joi was designed to say exactly what their users wanted to hear but it just feels so authentic an sincere, besides I can't deny that I dislike the chosen-one trope so having Joe's story turn out like that, honestly it felt quite brilliant.

Also Joe goes by K due to his serial number starting with that, I have been going by K on the web since like 2007 so I guess there's bias there too.

I loved 2049 on so many levels.
I loved how the film so beautifully captured the "retro future" vibe that was established from the original film's idea of The Futuuuure! from 1980. It felt modern, in that it had incorporated our actual advancements in technology, to show the progression, but also still FELT like Bladerunner future.

I loved Joi and how she was portrayed, how they very subtly implied with what she was doing, what the JOI line of products was potentially for.

Spoiler

Namely the scene where Joi hires a prostitute (without K's request or permission, implying a possible level of autonomy and self awareness). Now, first off I just think the scene was beautifully done, as far as visually and musically, and it felt genuinely touching to me. But it also fascinated me on retrospect, in what might've been the point. Multiple times, during the film, Joi requests things, or initiates activities, that force K to interact with the outside world. See the original short story BR was based on, had a very strong plot thread about humanity being isolated, and cut off from each other in their post apocalypse world. And had a program that basically helped reinforce empathy between people. It feels to me like Denis Villenueve read this and tried to incorporate a layer of it.

She first asks him about getting her that portable emitter, so he can take her OUTSIDE, and thus interact with other people. He's still got his security blanket of her being in his pocket, but he is out of the house. While outside, he encounters the prostitutes, and K shows an interest in one of them, but he's too shy and socially awkward to really interact with her. So, what does Joi do? She independently hires that woman to come and have sex with K. She even states to him that she noticed he had an interest in her, which is why Joi picked her. Sure she was also there to just be Joi's body for the lovemaking, but it was still K actually being in intimate contact with another human. Another layer of reinforced human contact and intimacy. And that connection to the woman later on, has a direct impact on the story. I'm pretty sure there are some other examples but those were the 2 that really stood out to me as fascinating bits of storytelling. Either from the standpoint of Joi as an Empathy Support Device and Human Re-integration Facilitator. And also as an actual sentient program. Because she takes a lot of actions that are considered the key signatures of actual intelligence, by the people that debate and try and define that stuff in the scientific/philosophical field.

I loved how I felt the isolation and distancing of everyone in that world, when watching the scenes. I had already been impressed by Denis from his work with Arrival, which I found to be just personally breathtaking, and then he follows it up with BR 2049, which just solidified him in my mind as "one of those directors that I will actually follow just because it's him." Which I've only ever done with Christopher Nolan.

Yeah, loved that damn movie so much.

 

[MrCalavera]

You were never really here

Another movie carried by Joaquin Phoenix's massive acting arms. Here he plays this sorta contract killer/enforcer/detective(but not like in Inherent Vice) at night, and a lonely guy, with some deep seated traumas, taking care of his elderly mom(but not like in Joker) at day. Perfect guy for a quick, and "clean" wetwork. We meet him first, after solving a case of child abduction, before his contact... agent, schedules him on another one. A big one. This time he has to rescue senator's daughter. But of course, like in any good detective story, nothing is like it seems, and things that seemed fairly easy get complicated very fast.
What makes it different from other detective stories is fairly realistic portrayal of action, and subversion of tropes. Sure, there's a pyramidal scheme involving rotten elites, seedy underbelly of Noir York City, etc. But almost every cliche is altered enough(not to a degree of pastiche) to keep you invested and surprised for those 90 minutes. Which feels much shorter. In fact after movie ended it was one of these "oh, it's over already?" moments for me. Felt more like an hour.

You can't really criticize the original Blade Runner for getting dull but not the sequel. 2049 has a lot of scenes that take longer and play out slower than they need to. That being said, it's still a really good movie. But not, in my opinion, as good as the first one. If only for how underwhelming the soundtrack is in comparison. For all that 2049 has going for it, there is a huge, Vangelis shaped hole in it.

I disagree. While Villeneuve might've went too far in few places, and tried to emulate BRs slow-burner pace a bit too close, it still had a more bearable pacing than the original. There's no scene as bad as the infamous ESPER one(which has a homage in 2049, that is itself a better and more memorable scene).
I'm not gonna deny original Blade Runner being more important for the history of filmmaking(and one that shaped my tastes in sci-fi), but overall, i think 2049 is a better film.
Agreed when it comes to soundtrack, though. Zimmer did a decent job, but it doesn't quite hold candle to Vangelis.

 

[Ezekiel]

Blade Runner 2049 was alright. Don't think I'd ever watch it a third time, very much unlike the original. Didn't have much good to say about it after my second viewing.

I just don’t like Denis Villeneuve very much. Most of his movies feel cold.

BR 2049 makes itself out to be too important. Not only the story, which made Deckard and Rachael bigger figures in this cyberpunk noir than they ever should have been. I feel like they tried to make those few love scenes in the original more important than they had a right to be. The movie wasn’t trying to be an epic. Anyway, it wasn’t just the story that made itself to be too important, but even the contemplative way scenes are shot and the bizarre way Jaret Leto’s character acts.

Even the first scene bothered me. K lets go of his gun just so a fight can ensue, with some dumb justification that he needs to scan the victim’s eye. I mean, Deckard wasn’t a good assassin in the original either, but his kills didn’t annoy me like this one. He never lowered his guard after he was ready to kill.

The score by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch is excessively loud, heavy and ugly, with the theme in which K and Joi leave greater Los Angeles and Vangelis’ main theme at the end being among the only highlights. I've no idea why they played music so oppressive right after a beautiful ending.

I do like a lot of the scenery, the way the city looks, but I still think Ridley Scott’s team did it better almost forty years ago. I appreciate that they developed on themes of the original, like servitude, memory and environmentalism. K’s story wasn’t boring, but I don’t like Ryan Gosling much.

The movie is competent. It’s not special.

 

[Thaluikhain]

So I decided to re-watch this movie and it's really surprising that what most certainly started production as a corporate cash-grab for nostalgia with the movie being a sequel that came out 35 years after the original beloved but blockbuster failure, yet it still managed to be a deeply heartfelt story with wonderful cinematography,

I know, right? That just doesn't happen. It's the promise of every long running franchise getting another film, but a sequel that works, that can build on the original while keeping true to the spirit? Apart from Blade Runner, I'm thinking the 3rd Predator film. Maybe Mad Max: Fury Road, though they have the advantage of being primarily action films.