Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[thebobmaster]

I never really cared for Thunderball that much. It has its moments, but the climactic underwater fight was one of those ideas that I feel looked good on paper, but when actually filmed, I just found rather dull to watch. I do think it looked nice, though, and despite not actually doing all that much, Largo had a pretty good presence about him that gave him the air of a suave criminal who would have no problems throwing men at a complication until the complication is removed, because the men can be replaced.

I also give the movie some credit for Domino, who is remarkably progressive for a 60's Bond girl in that she is allowed to pursue her vendetta without being treated like an utter moron (hi, Tilly Masterson!).

 

[Piscian]

I watched Sonic The Hedge Hog 1&2 this weekend.

The first one is pretty solid. It wasnt a masterpiece, but not a slog either. Sadly I think its greatest strength is how much Jim Carrey embraces the Doctor Robotnik role. He's genuinely funny and entertaining, but never devolves into the typical jim carrey ADHD nonsense. Hes consistent. I like that he treats his minion closer to a companion that a space filler. The movie suffers a bit for the human characters picking up too much of the character development slack. The comedy is very inconsistent and generally weak, but the movie moves along at a reasonable clip so I wasnt ever explicitly bored.

The sequel is much more of a mixed bag. I checked the time and the film really doesn't feel like it gets going until the 55 minute mark. There's a scene just before that where sonic and tails are furloughed in a Norwegian Inn and what should have been a couple communication gap jokes rolls into a dance number that feels like its at least ten minutes long and you could go pee and miss nothing. The human characters and Sonic are much funnier this time around, but Sonic still ends up being the least amusing character, even knuckles fish out of water gags are vastly more entertaining than sonic himself. Unlike the first film I actually laughed out loud twice during the sequel. Jim Carrey continues to overshadow everyone else seeming to really enjoy his character. I think in general they just need a better writing staff and these films could easily have been elevated from a 6/10 to an 8. Theres some genuinely good stuff here it just never consistently comes together. The official writers are hollywood seat fillers so I assume they had some intern snl types adding in jokes. Theres a running gag in both films about olive garden I really enjoyed.

There's also a really subtle reference to sonic having muscles that both made me want to throw up and tip my hat to whatever intern snuck that in. Would literally only get it if you were familiar with the more concerning sonic fandom internet elements.

I think the sequel works well enough, but I would have dialed back the human subplots and just made the film a race between the heroes and villains to collect the chaos emeralds. There was a real opportunity here to make this a big film like a 2-230h extravaganza, throw in a bunch of Sonic characters and do a homage to amazing race type films. Instead it just feels like more of the first film and just introducing Knuckles. Tails is entirely forgettable. I hope they do something like that for the sequel which seems pretty much inevitable with how well these two performed. Jim carrey is not signed on and its noted hes seemie retired. I think its going to be tough for them to compete without him.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Dr. Strange: Multiverse of Madness

Every once in a while some popular plot device comes along that Hollywood screenwriters treat as the hot new thing to shoehorn into their productions. Currently, the ball has landed on the "multiverse", certainly one of the more abstract concepts to build action blockbusters around.
MoM is Marvel Studio's second movie to feature it as part of its premise and showcases rather well what the difference between successfully utilizing a plot device, and just having it is.
Spiderman: No Way Home recognized it as a welcome excuse to pay tribute to Spider-Man's history in live action cinema, bringing back some old favourites and basically making their own crossover fanfiction come to life. MoM, on the other hand, is Marvel in peak "banging action figures together" mode, getting Sam Raimi to lend some dynamic direction to a script that represents Marvel both at its most self indulgent and its most self congratulatory.

MoM is the story of the titular wizard trying to protect newcomer America Chavez, an interdimensional fugitive, from the clutches of what turns out to be former Avenger Scarlet Witch who wants to use her to access a universe where she can have the idyllic life as a housewife she can't have in her native universe. This franchise is weird about women, just roll with it. If there is one thing I'll give the movie credit for, it's that I genuinely think there is some potential to the idea of using the multiverse/alternate timeline setup to explore the idea of escapism, of the unhealthy desire to access the world where "things went right" and steal the place of your "ideal self". Whenever it brushed up against these themes, I found myself wishing that one day a better, more emotionally mature movie might come along to elaborate on them.
Mind you, that does make for one of the more interesting motivations for a supervillain (and it should, there's an entire streaming series for the sake of fleshing it out), but the movie itself isn't exactly some introspective character piece.
Rather, it's a very typical MCU movie that's at its most enjoyable when Raimi get to use expensive CGI to replicate the visual quirks of low budget B-horror. There are certainly a few moments like that, but Raimi's compelling direction doesn't quite compensate for writing that presents Marvel at its most obnoxiously Marvel. It was early on in the movie when two characters reminisce about the events of the last two Avengers movie as a "war" they fought in that made me realize that, at this point, the MCU has built up enough of its own history that it can completely divorce itself from the real world. And that it's more than happy to do so.

As much as directors like Raimi can put their visual stamp on a movie, the actual writing remains a universal (or, perhaps, multiversal) constant, including the patented annoying, sitcom style banter that tends to deflate any potential emotional impact. MoM has a variety of fun to watch action setpieces, as well as a variety of cameos (one recognizable character sees an actor from standalone adaptations reprising his role, another one is played by a new face) that are sure to make fans happy, but if you never especially cared about the MCU as a whole, this movie mainly consists of all the stuff you don't care about, with very little stuff to make you care.

 

[SilentPony]

SNIP

The movie was also oddly sexist, and that's not something that I usually pick up on. It reminds me a lot of the Game of Throne ending with Daenyrs going crazy because her boyfriend wont have sex with her. In MoM we have Wanda going baby crazy and going on a great big bloody rampage because she wants exploit a Latino American to keep her black/white suburban white woman fantasy life. We had Wanda enslaving an entire town in order to play dress up, and now we have her breaking necks and attacking children because she wants to play dress up again.
And at the end she just pulls a surprised Pikachu face that her kids think she's a bloody monster.
Powerful woman must be evil, and she's baby crazy and is emotionally distraught when faced with the consequences of her actions. It feels very regressive.
Also I guess Loki and WandaVision don't matter anymore? 'cause clearly the multiverse existed well before Loki, and Wanda isn't interested in having a family with Vision, she just wants babies.

 

[BrawlMan]

So I was reading a bit about this flick on the interwebs and everybody talking about how it's inspired by movies like Chinatown, Klute, The Pentagon Papers, Taxi Driver... I love those movies! And that somehow the portrayal of Bruce Wayne is inspired by Kurt Cobain... I love Nirvana!
But just smushing references and inspiration results in a bland goop of sort of nothing, which is what this felt like.

I agree with you on Joker, but disagree heavily on The Batman. The latter definitely does more than enough to stand on its own, despite references to Se7en, the Zodiac Killer, and inspirations from other Batman media. Also, this movie doubles as a throwback to 1970s Batman, where the emphasis was on the detective part of the Caped Crusader. Which is welcome change of pace for live-action adaptions.

 

[Ezekiel]

Planet Terror

Rewatch. Rented this and Death Proof because I saw they were out of print, and Netflix is always losing Blu-rays. Think stupid outweighs entertainment somewhat. Liked what they were going for, but still more stupid. Would watch again, years from now. Marley Shelton (the doctor who loses the feeling in her hands) was the highlight for me.

Weird not seeing Michael Biehn for so long and then The Rock and Death Proof in consecutive nights. Been so long that I forgot he was in either of these movies.

 

[BrawlMan]

ewatch. Rented this and Death Proof because I saw they were out of print,

Really? You can find Blu Ray and DVD for decent or standard prices of either movie on Amazon. I got my used Blu Ray copy of Planet Terror from a Disc Replay. Death Proof I don't care all that much for, so I am not invested in getting a copy. I used to have a DVD copy of Planet Terror, but sold it a long time back.

 

[Ezekiel]

Really? You can find Blu Ray and DVD for decent or standard prices of either movie on Amazon. I got my used Blu Ray copy of Planet Terror from a Disc Replay. Death Proof I don't care all that much for, so I am not invested in getting a copy. I used to have a DVD copy of Planet Terror, but sold it a long time back.

Those are pricier region 2 Blu-rays.

Death Proof Blu-ray (Grindhouse Presents Death Proof | Extended and Unrated)

Death Proof Blu-ray Release Date December 16, 2008 (Grindhouse Presents Death Proof | Extended and Unrated). Blu-ray reviews, news, specs, ratings, screenshots. Cheap Blu-ray movies and deals.

www.blu-ray.com

Planet Terror Blu-ray (Grindhouse Presents Planet Terror | Extended and Unrated)

Planet Terror Blu-ray Release Date December 16, 2008 (Grindhouse Presents Planet Terror | Extended and Unrated). Blu-ray reviews, news, specs, ratings, screenshots. Cheap Blu-ray movies and deals.

www.blu-ray.com

Out of print. Was gonna post Amazon links, but the site doesn't seem to like them.

 

[BrawlMan]

Those are pricier region 2 Blu-rays.

Crap that's high! I take it you have a region free Blu Ray player?

 

[Ezekiel]

Crap that's high! I take it you have a region free Blu Ray player?

No. But I import anyway. My computer rips them all into playable MKV files.

 

[Ezekiel]

In the Heat of the Night

Third time. Two cops who hate each other forced to work together on a murder in Mississippi. Sidney Poitier's character is passing through on his way to Philadelphia. Like it a little more with each viewing. Entertaining seeing them cut into each other's character flaws in these heated arguments and become buds. Stylish too, partly for Quincy Jones' score.

How I rewatched it in August:

How I rewatched it tonight:

 

[Bartholen]

Bad Black, 9/10, and Crazy World, 11/10 (both with friends and alcohol)

These are close-to-zero budget DIY action movies made in the slums of Uganda. The production company, Wakaliwood, has become quite the name in so bad it's good cinema, and their movies are always entertaining beyond words. Recounting the plots of these two movies is both pointless and nearly impossible, as it's 1. incredibly hard to follow what is happening and 2. the story is not why anyone watches, or even makes these movies. No, the point is to enjoy the highest energy, most kickass action spectacle you can imagine. The entertainment value of these movies is simply through the stratosphere, thanks in large part to the Video Joker, or VJ for short. The video joker, VJ Emmie, acts as essentially a real time hype man, commentary track and translator who talks over the movie. His energy and sheer enthusiasm is so infectious you can't help but smile, and it's thanks to him that anybody is able to follow these films at all.

Not that the movies are only entertaining because of the video joker. In spite of their obviously nonexistent budget there's some genuinely solid acting and absolutely kickass action choreography, which only become more impressive when you remember that these are entirely self-taught actors and stunt performers. The special effects and props are gloriously hokey (for example, a pair of binoculars made of two discarded plastic bottles) and the entire production just oozes charm and joy for filmmaking. The movies have a great sense of humor and self-awareness to them and are genuinely funny, and not just in a "ha ha, look how shit this is" way. The jokes and action scenes come a mile a minute, and both these movies feel at least 50% longer than they actually are in a good way. I was genuinely exhausted after watching both of them from sheer laughter.

Since these movies are all kind of the same, I haven't really discussed them as separate entities. The reason Bad Black is rated lower is around the halfway point it becomes jarringly serious with some genuinely uncomfortable depictions of child abuse. On one hand I want to commend the filmmakers for shining a light on an obviously important and serious issue in their silly action film, but on the other hand it's fairly at odds at how the movie starts out and what people watch them for. Crazy World is more consistent, and an absolute riot from start to finish. When it comes to movies to watch drunk with friends, Wakaliwood films are all SSS tier.

 

[Thaluikhain]

The Fifth Element

Apparently the actress who plays the diva met the director when she was 12 and he was 29, they started dating when she was 15, she had his baby when she was 16, when she was 20 she was in this film, and during production he dumped her for Milla Jovovich who would have been 22, playing the love interest of Bruce Willis, who would have been 42.

Yeah, the movie looks a bit dodgy after knowing that. Bruce Willis is a manly man, surrounding by annoying or over-sexualised women, wimpy men and one Milla Jovovich who only gets one action scene, though there's not as many action scenes in this as I remember. It's inventively weird looking and partially funded by McDonalds.

 

[gorfias]

The Fifth Element

Apparently the actress who plays the diva met the director when she was 12 and he was 29, they started dating when she was 15, she had his baby when she was 16, when she was 20 she was in this film, and during production he dumped her for Milla Jovovich who would have been 22, playing the love interest of Bruce Willis, who would have been 42.

Yeah, the movie looks a bit dodgy after knowing that. Bruce Willis is a manly man, surrounding by annoying or over-sexualised women, wimpy men and one Milla Jovovich who only gets one action scene, though there's not as many action scenes in this as I remember. It's inventively weird looking and partially funded by McDonalds.

Aaaahhgghh, can't unread that.
The Diva is twice divorced. Maybe she is mean? Dunno. Still icky. F Luc Besson.

Maïwenn - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Piscian]

Aaaahhgghh, can't unread that.
The Diva is twice divorced. Maybe she is mean? Dunno. Still icky. F Luc Besson.

Maïwenn - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hes a very cherished, icky dude. There's a been several attempts to cancel him, but nothing ever really gotten off the ground. Its very frustrating, because I think I've loved like 99% of his movies, but he's seriously handsy with the actresses, or has been in the past.

 

[Chimpzy]

Ah, Luc Besson, France's favorite pedo director. Did you know that in the original script of Leon The professional, as written by Besson, 12 year old Mathilda has sex with Leon?

 

[Casual Shinji]

Ah, Luc Besson, France's favorite pedo director. Did you know that in the original script of Leon The professional, as written by Besson, 12 year old Mathilda has sex with Leon?

I always felt a tad weird about those outfits she was wearing... and now I know why.

 

[Gordon_4]

Ah, Luc Besson, France's favorite pedo director. Did you know that in the original script of Leon The professional, as written by Besson, 12 year old Mathilda has sex with Leon?

I assume it was Jean Reno who objected most strongly to that. And then everyone else.

 

[BrawlMan]

The Fifth Element

Apparently the actress who plays the diva met the director when she was 12 and he was 29, they started dating when she was 15, she had his baby when she was 16, when she was 20 she was in this film, and during production he dumped her for Milla Jovovich who would have been 22, playing the love interest of Bruce Willis, who would have been 42.

Yeah, the movie looks a bit dodgy after knowing that. Bruce Willis is a manly man, surrounding by annoying or over-sexualised women, wimpy men and one Milla Jovovich who only gets one action scene, though there's not as many action scenes in this as I remember. It's inventively weird looking and partially funded by McDonalds.

I never liked this movie, and found it boring and overrated.

Ah, Luc Besson, France's favorite pedo director. Did you know that in the original script of Leon The professional, as written by Besson, 12 year old Mathilda has sex with Leon?

Dude is beyond a fucking hack. I don't know why so many film critics "revered and respected", Besson. I don't like a majority of his filmography, and it only got worse after The Transporter.

I always felt a tad weird about those outfits she was wearing... and now I know why.

I used to have a copy of this movie; glad I don't anymore. Sold it back in the mid 2010s.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I always felt a tad weird about those outfits she was wearing... and now I know why.

Even as a child (well, basically a child, maybe 13 or 14) I noticed how... focused the camera was on Mathilda. I very clearly remember being surprised they left a scene in where you could see straight up her skirt, didn't seem like the kind of mistake they would make. Now I see it probably wasn't a "mistake".