Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[Dwarvenhobble]

Reunion of Champions
(Prime Video)

Rating: Interesting premise but uneven and only worth watching as a curiosity not due to any real quality or a well executed premise.

Films premise: Earth was saved from a demonic invasion being summoned by Lord Eldritch by 6 champions the film takes places years later with various members of the team having to deal with every day life and coming together for a reunion the first reunion after the mysterious death of one of their members

Thoughts:
As I said Interesting premise which really can't decide quite what it wants to be if it's trying to be a serious drama with superhero's or it's meant to be a parody of such a thing and it sways tonally back and fourth a lot as though it's a series of M.A.S.H. only almost with more more tonal whiplash.
The Champions seem very much like archetypes of sorts and include:

Sarah a Fae Witch White Mage school girl who I can best describe as what some-one on Tumblr would draw a stereotype Black Woman magical girl anime character like so magical gem on her forehead, for some of her appearances a Japanese style schoolgirl outfit and very bushy curly black hair

Arin a cyborg from the future sent back to change history by stopping the demon invasion.

Kat an Atheist half demon girl

Drake A.K.A. Black Hat an undead private investigator / vigilante trapped between life and death since the 1930s when he was the subject of a mafia hit that somehow saw him not die.

Takeshi a warrior trained from birth by the order of light to defeat a foretold coming evil using ancient martial arts powers to throw fireballs

Ben Kage: Takeshi's best friend and also trained with the order of light on their secret island

The idea is interesting because it's about the idea of what now the world has been saved and trying to get on with their lives but with the unexplained death of Takeshi handing over the group and especially Sarah who was dating him and found him dead but by the time of the reunion has sort of moved on and is dating Ben. Arin had joined the military being from a future where it was constant war vs the demon hordes but was dishonourably discharged when he refused orders due to what he saw as a war he could no longer fight in because it wasn't simple good vs evil it was too messy, this is told to us somewhat by an Alex Jones talking head calling him a sissy and a cuck BTW. Kat is struggling having become dependent on alcohol and drugs and ended up in at least one if not more aggravated assault incidents and has been in and out of rehab along with doing anti drugs PSAs. Drake is back to being a vigilante and Ben Kage has become a film star turning his hand to starring in martial arts films.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

The film has moments where it's quite good with some effects coming off pretty damn good for an indie production while others are slightly more rough round the edges. The same with costume elements with some looking quite well made while other parts just look like they grabbed some discount Halloween items and put them together into outfits along with whatever was on discount at their local store.

The tone issue comes about with sort of some of what I will generously call jokes like referencing how the in universe version of the film of them beating Lord Eldritch didn't have the budget to hire Scarlett Johansson or talking about how in Arin's future Batman is a religious icon also referencing the MCU, Watchmen and Terminator Genisys among other things. Oh and later in the film they introduce a character who is sort of seeming like the film is self aware and the character is meant to be there as an audience stand in or something chiming in sometimes.

Honestly I think the whole thing might have been done in a short timeframe in possibly a rented quite large house for some of the film just over maybe a week or a weekend or something.

Plot wise I will say the mystery around Takeshi's death and Drake trying to find out the truth is somewhat interesting but given how it ends I'd say it's not worth it for that alone though I will give it credit for the 1 martial arts fight scene which while not great and using the shaky cam quick cuts style it actually looks pretty damn good considering this is a very amateur film. I'd say better than some of the higher budget action films there days simply due it actually being willing to show longer drawn out bits of the sequence not constant cuts and I'd guess that the cuts happen only when the scene went wrong or they decided to use a different take from a different angle so it was more done out of necessity for time and budget than being a stylistic cost saving move in a multimillion dollar film because of big studio penny pinching.

Spoiler: Plot spoilers but also why you shouldn't bother

So Drake is looking into Takeshi's death and suspects some-one of being responsible and it being one of the group. Initially suspicion falls on Kat because according to Arin in his timeline most of the other champions were killed by Kat as she chose to side with evil not with good, however as Kat denies it. Drake then reveals that Takeshi and Ben were actually lovers and both were Bi but it's not Ben who did it. Eventually Drake find a note that Sarah has kept hidden, it reveals Takeshi felt he no longer had a purpose in life having been raised since birth to be the chosen one to save the world and having saved it and struggling to fit in to the rest of the world now he killed himself. Sarah had kept this from everyone else because she didn't want any of the rest of them giving up hope and feeling there was nothing left for them or they had no purpose left because of each of them having their own troubles.

The film ultimately really leads no-where and even some of the the stuff in the main film gets undone a bit by the ending which does one of those high school film text overlays of where it's like "And [insert name] went on to do this and this happened then this" Most of which for the characters come off as kind of strange one way or another and doesn't really feel uplifting as such, it just feels odd for some of them.

 

[Thaluikhain]

My asshole stayed puckered the entire time as my three deepest fears are being burned alive, drowning and being eaten alive by a wild animal (finding myself in a Saw-like situation coming in a close fourth.)

Good to know in case I ever become a supervillain and you my nemesis.

I so should have watched Call Girl of Cthulhu instead.

Not a sentence I see that often.

 

[Bartholen]

Watched Spider-Man: Homecoming and Far From Home the same night, since neither were on Disney+, but on Netflix and Amazon respectively. I'd say they're both somewhat above average Marvel movies, so 7/10 for both.

Of the two Homecoming is IMO the superior one. It has a bit more focus, is smaller scale, and has the novelty value of being a way different take on Spider-Man than we're used to. Holland is really charming in the lead role, Ned is a great sideman and just plain adorable, Vulture is one of the better MCU villains and the whole thing is just a really charming and fun (home)coming of age story. It's also genuinely funny, so it definitely works as an action comedy. It's also fun to see Spider-Man being more than a bit of a fuck-up: not only is he often out of his depth (the interrogation scene with Donald Glover is the funniest in the film), his actions also many times end up making things worse. The film's best part is probably the twist with the villain, and it works 100% even when you know it's coming. In an instant a lot of the movie is recontextualized, character allegiances and sympathies shift, and the whole thing gains a grain of moral greyness not often seen in Marvel movies. Michael Keaton is on his A-game, being funny, kind, charming and terrifying at the same time.

What drags the movie down are the usual Marvel problems: it's visually stunningly uninteresting (aside from the brief Ferris Bueller homage), and there's a tendency for overt flippancy: in one scene the Vulture straight up disintegrates one of his goons, and everyone's reaction is just played for laughs.

Far From Home feels mostly like a sidegrade: it's visually slightly more interesting, but a bit less focused. It has a quite strong first half, but in the second half it really starts to stretch believability even by MCU standards. The theme of Spider-Man learning to deal with the responsibility of his station is still strong, but in some ways it feels like a thematic retread of Homecoming: instead of the suit now it's the glasses. For every aspect that's improved from Homecoming I can think of one that's a bit weaker. But all of Homecoming's strengths are still present: it's still funny, the actors and chemistry are on point, and Holland carries his role magnificently. Perhaps the most disappointing thing about it is that it feels forcedly big, like it's obligated to shove its budget in the audience's face all the time with lavish locations, special effects blowouts and a supposed world-threatening conflict. A lot of it isn't necessary, and would actually make the movie better if removed: at the end when Peter has to rely on his spider sense to defeat Mysterio, I thought how cool it would be if they only showed Peter striking at empty air in a single tracking shot, and then show the whole thing from Mysterio's POV. But no, sparks flying, metal getting crushed, bang boom crash wallop is what we get.

As with Homecoming, there's a really aggravating aspect to the script that I've now realized is consistent through all three MCU Spider-Man films: the whole world seems to act and have been designed horribly irresponsibly. In Homecoming is the aforementioned disintegration scene. In Far From Home Peter gets given essentially godlike power, which apparently can be used on accident in the blink of an eye. Not only that, but said godlike power can apparently just be given freely to any twat without any further verification or consideration. And in No Way Home it's Dr. Strange. It just lessens the stakes when you can hardly take this world of super-technology seriously because everyone is acting like they're at the "I can do anything" stage of drunkenness.

But the biggest mark against these Spider-Man movies, and a lot of the MCU in retrospect is that you just can't watch them as Spider-Man movies. To understand Homecoming you need to have seen Civil War (and think how many movies that requires you to have seen to understand), to understand Far From Home you need to have seen Endgame, and so on. They rely so much on the viewer already knowing the universe and the characters in it that if you'd show them to someone unfamiliar with the MCU they'd be completely lost: who is Happy? Who is Tony Stark? Who is Nick Fury and why is he acting like a dick towards Peter? Even I was confused when Far From Home started with Nick Fury and Maria Hill in Mexico. And the connections to the MCU are so prevalent that if you'd try to take them out you'd have to rewrite the whole movie. It made me realize (probably way late) that this will happen to the vast majority of MCU movies at this point, and who the fuck knows how it will go down in cinema history in the long term. Where will it end? It already seems like Multiverse of Madness assumes you to have watched an entire TV show with Wandavision. At what point does it stop being an entertaining connecting narrative and becomes just homework.

 

[Gordon_4]

Watched Spider-Man: Homecoming and Far From Home the same night, since neither were on Disney+, but on Netflix and Amazon respectively. I'd say they're both somewhat above average Marvel movies, so 7/10 for both.

Of the two Homecoming is IMO the superior one. It has a bit more focus, is smaller scale, and has the novelty value of being a way different take on Spider-Man than we're used to. Holland is really charming in the lead role, Ned is a great sideman and just plain adorable, Vulture is one of the better MCU villains and the whole thing is just a really charming and fun (home)coming of age story. It's also genuinely funny, so it definitely works as an action comedy. It's also fun to see Spider-Man being more than a bit of a fuck-up: not only is he often out of his depth (the interrogation scene with Donald Glover is the funniest in the film), his actions also many times end up making things worse. The film's best part is probably the twist with the villain, and it works 100% even when you know it's coming. In an instant a lot of the movie is recontextualized, character allegiances and sympathies shift, and the whole thing gains a grain of moral greyness not often seen in Marvel movies. Michael Keaton is on his A-game, being funny, kind, charming and terrifying at the same time.

What drags the movie down are the usual Marvel problems: it's visually stunningly uninteresting (aside from the brief Ferris Bueller homage), and there's a tendency for overt flippancy: in one scene the Vulture straight up disintegrates one of his goons, and everyone's reaction is just played for laughs.

Far From Home feels mostly like a sidegrade: it's visually slightly more interesting, but a bit less focused. It has a quite strong first half, but in the second half it really starts to stretch believability even by MCU standards. The theme of Spider-Man learning to deal with the responsibility of his station is still strong, but in some ways it feels like a thematic retread of Homecoming: instead of the suit now it's the glasses. For every aspect that's improved from Homecoming I can think of one that's a bit weaker. But all of Homecoming's strengths are still present: it's still funny, the actors and chemistry are on point, and Holland carries his role magnificently. Perhaps the most disappointing thing about it is that it feels forcedly big, like it's obligated to shove its budget in the audience's face all the time with lavish locations, special effects blowouts and a supposed world-threatening conflict. A lot of it isn't necessary, and would actually make the movie better if removed: at the end when Peter has to rely on his spider sense to defeat Mysterio, I thought how cool it would be if they only showed Peter striking at empty air in a single tracking shot, and then show the whole thing from Mysterio's POV. But no, sparks flying, metal getting crushed, bang boom crash wallop is what we get.

As with Homecoming, there's a really aggravating aspect to the script that I've now realized is consistent through all three MCU Spider-Man films: the whole world seems to act and have been designed horribly irresponsibly. In Homecoming is the aforementioned disintegration scene. In Far From Home Peter gets given essentially godlike power, which apparently can be used on accident in the blink of an eye. Not only that, but said godlike power can apparently just be given freely to any twat without any further verification or consideration. And in No Way Home it's Dr. Strange. It just lessens the stakes when you can hardly take this world of super-technology seriously because everyone is acting like they're at the "I can do anything" stage of drunkenness.

But the biggest mark against these Spider-Man movies, and a lot of the MCU in retrospect is that you just can't watch them as Spider-Man movies. To understand Homecoming you need to have seen Civil War (and think how many movies that requires you to have seen to understand), to understand Far From Home you need to have seen Endgame, and so on. They rely so much on the viewer already knowing the universe and the characters in it that if you'd show them to someone unfamiliar with the MCU they'd be completely lost: who is Happy? Who is Tony Stark? Who is Nick Fury and why is he acting like a dick towards Peter? Even I was confused when Far From Home started with Nick Fury and Maria Hill in Mexico. And the connections to the MCU are so prevalent that if you'd try to take them out you'd have to rewrite the whole movie. It made me realize (probably way late) that this will happen to the vast majority of MCU movies at this point, and who the fuck knows how it will go down in cinema history in the long term. Where will it end? It already seems like Multiverse of Madness assumes you to have watched an entire TV show with Wandavision. At what point does it stop being an entertaining connecting narrative and becomes just homework.

I feel at this point that complaining about the interconnectivity of the MCU is really just making a rod for your own back. This little adventure started back in 2009 and by say, Captain America the Winter Soldier you were either onboard with enterprise or you weren’t.

Also anyone who knows who Spider-Man is likely has broad enough knowledge of the Marvel stable that they know exactly who Tony Stark and Nick Fury are.

 

[Bartholen]

I feel at this point that complaining about the interconnectivity of the MCU is really just making a rod for your own back. This little adventure started back in 2009 and by say, Captain America the Winter Soldier you were either onboard with enterprise or you weren’t.

Also anyone who knows who Spider-Man is likely has broad enough knowledge of the Marvel stable that they know exactly who Tony Stark and Nick Fury are.

Would they though? At this point the first Iron Man movie is older than a lot of people who would be the prime target audience for the MCU (meaning ages about 11+). Do we just assume all those people have seen the whole MCU? What if someone isn't interested in Captain America, but wants to watch Spider-Man? What movie are you supposed to start with? And what can you leave out? Thor: The Dark World is almost universally considered bottom-tier Marvel, but it's pretty damn important to be able to understand what happens in Endgame. Do you just watch the parts that matter, sit through the whole thing, or read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia?

My comment was more about the MCU's legacy in the long run anyway. Seeing as it's likely not stopping anytime soon, I just wonder how we're going to look at these movies in, say, 2032. A cinematic experiment with a scope beyond anything we'd ever seen? An initially interesting and exciting experiment that got stale? Or a gigantic, cynical, bloated cash cow that devolved into an incomprehensible mess?

 

[Agema]

Or a gigantic, cynical, bloated cash cow that devolved into an incomprehensible mess?

If it's turned into an incomprehensible mess, at least it accurately reflects comics.

 

[Thaluikhain]

12 O'Clock High

Classic 1949 movie about US bombers in WW2, specifically about a new officer who has to replace the leader of a bomber group. Apparently was shown at US military academies because of how it depicts leadership issues.

Bit long, but worth watching.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Domino (2005): Fun / Great

A film loosely based on the life of Domino Harvey (portrayed by Kiera Knightly.) Domino was a British woman, born into wealth, dropped out of school to become a model, then upon landing in the US... became a bounty hunter. That has all the trappings of a bad script pitch in Hollywood, but no, that loose framing is exactly what happened with this woman in real life.

The film itself shoots all over the place, first to get you up to speed, then to give it that "edge" letting you know that Domino is a too cool for school badass, and "you" can't keep up. It really is a mess to try and follow as new characters and interconnected plot points are introduced every 45 seconds, they keep shifting from present day to the past, but sometimes not to what actually happened, etc. The film tries to be a lot more clever than it actually is by intentionally confusing you, but once I stopped trying to suss out what was going on, the film was actually quite fun. I let it have its little moment like the 5-year-old hiding in the most obvious place during a game of hide-n-seek.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Licorice Pizza

Lovely movie, very similar to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in terms of painting a highly melancholy but by no means sad in memoriam. It doesn't detour into fantasy like Tarantino's movie but it still feels dreamy and surreal, like romanticized memories. Like Once Upon it's simultaneously very specific in its construction but also extremely casual in the way one scene leads to the next, and where it's all headed.

 

[Ezekiel]

Britney Spears Live from Las Vegas (2001)

I watched a DVD compilation of her music videos before this. She's not very good. I sort of like some of her music. At least it wasn't boring. The scores for this are really high, probably because it's not watched by many non-fans like myself.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Keanu

What I like about Key & Peele doesn't carry over very well when it has to check all the boxes of a 100 minute feature. They're at their best performing 5 minute sketches that can be as weird as they want them to be, and end them at their funniest, and move over to something else. In Keanu everything drags on just a little past the funniest beat, and what could've been a funny send-up of the Takens and the John Wicks of the world ends up playing out more or less like them.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

The Night House

Thriller/horror film from last year starring Rebecca Hall where she's haunted (maybe?) by her dead husband. It's one of those psychological horror film that completely hands on the star's performance, and Hall is pretty great so the movie works. If you like this sort of movie, check it out.

My wife wrote down a bunch of movies that looked interesting from some web site list or something and most of them are horror so I'll be watching a bunch of those over the next few weeks.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Under Suspicion: Meh / Great

A film set in Puerto Rico about a wealthy tax attorney (Gene Hackman) who is abruptly summoned into police custody by the police captain (Morgan Freeman) and interrogated with regards to the murders of two you girls. The more Hackman speaks, the more he seemingly digs himself into a reprehensible hole. His much younger wife (Monica Bellucci) is brought in to corroborate the cops' suspicions, and a whole mess unfolds.

An ok film with A-list actors that does a great job building intrigue with about as unsatisfying an ending as you'll find in cinema. It keeps you guessing about who's lying about what, but in the end, it's tantamount to a "shaggy dog" story. Worth a watch if only to see how a great build can lead to a limp-dick finish.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Under Suspicion: Meh / Great

A film set in Puerto Rico about a wealthy tax attorney (Gene Hackman) who is abruptly summoned into police custody by the police captain (Morgan Freeman) and interrogated with regards to the murders of two you girls. The more Hackman speaks, the more he seemingly digs himself into a reprehensible hole. His much younger wife (Monica Bellucci) is brought in to corroborate the cops' suspicions, and a whole mess unfolds.

An ok film with A-list actors that does a great job building intrigue with about as unsatisfying an ending as you'll find in cinema. It keeps you guessing about who's lying about what, but in the end, it's tantamount to a "shaggy dog" story. Worth a watch if only to see how a great build can lead to a limp-dick finish.

I think I remember having watched that film, but the only thing about it I remember clearly was the ending when they are both sitting on a bench. That forgettable.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I think I remember having watched that film, but the only thing about it I remember clearly was the ending when they are both sitting on a bench. That forgettable.

Forgettable AND a waste of talent.

 

[Xprimentyl]

The God Committee: Good / Great

A team of doctors are tasked with deciding which of three eligible patients should receive an urgent heart transplant within an hour of the donor organ expiring. Two candidates are your average Joe types with unexceptional lives, and the third, the son of a rich guy; the rich guy tries to taint their votes with a $25M donation for the hospital.

Not much to say save for it is well acted by Kelsey Grammer, Julia Stiles and the rest. It's a hard watch when you consider the ethics, morality and ultimately the decisions these people have to live with. Thank God I've not the mind or disposition for the medical field. Were everyone like me, squeamish, indecisive and generally afraid of the unknown, humanity would not have made it beyond ankle-deep off the coasts of Africa, and the average lifespan would be about 17 years old if you're lucky.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Insomnia: Good / Great

Al Pacino plays a detective dispatched from LA to investigate the murder of a young woman in a small town in Alaska. Robin Williams is involved, and knows a secret of Pacino's that... complicates things.

Pacino and Williams already make it a worthy watch; while it wasn't the greatest movie, it was certainly good. It was interesting following a tale where both "protagonists" are irredeemable, and it ends exactly as it should have.

The Lost Daughter: Okay? / Great

Sexism in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1: A chick flick drama.

Leda, a middle-aged woman vacationing in Greece, finds herself entangled in the lives of another vacationing family, particularly that of a young woman who has a young daughter which it's inferred she sees herself in (the young woman, not the daughter.) After rescuing the aforementioned small child from being lost, she steals her doll leaving the child's family frantic to find it as the child is inconsolable. It has a very "British drama" feel in that most of what you're expected to take away is unsaid, and while I can appreciate the use of inference, it can't be the entire backbone of the thing. It's basically the story of one woman with a fucked up view on life teaching lessons in very back-handed ways.

A lot of nothing happens, but I'm not particularly sure why any of it does at all. From what I was able to gather, regret was a major theme, but by the end, I'm not sure why this film needed to be a thing. Not bad, well acted, but ultimately pointless. Ultimately, we come to learn the main character was basically a shitty parent, worse spouse, with ostensibly nothing to redeem herself save recognizing her own behaviors in another woman. Maybe it's more meta than my pea-sized brain could grasp, but the whole point of the movie seemed to have been an anecdote that could have be relayed in four sentences instead of a feature-length film.

 

[thebobmaster]

Insomnia: Good / Great

Al Pacino plays a detective dispatched from LA to investigate the murder of a young woman in a small town in Alaska. Robin Williams is involved, and knows a secret of Pacino's that... complicates things.

Pacino and Williams already make it a worthy watch; while it wasn't the greatest movie, it was certainly good. It was interesting following a tale where both "protagonists" are irredeemable, and it ends exactly as it should have.

That was a very interesting movie to watch, for me. Partially because it is one of the few times Robin Williams is a villain, and also because of how good of a job it does putting you in the shoes of Pacino's character, where it can be hard to tell what's actually happening and what's just his conscience/sleep deprivation messing with his head.

 

[Hawki]

Watched some stuff:

-Justice League vs. Teen Titans (5/10)

-Justice League vs. the Fatal Five (5/10)

-Justice League Dark (6/10)

...yeah, not a fan. Maybe these films are out of my league, but even despite watching them while working, can't feel I was delivered justice. No longer a teenager, so maybe my knowledge of the characters has been left in the dark.