Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[Ezekiel]

Was watching some Mexican movie, but became very tired twenty minutes in, slept a few hours, then decided to watch Nights of Cabiria again, after remuxing it earlier.

If someone asked me what my favorite movie is, I'd probably say this. It's not even that it's necessarily better than others that I love, but nearly every viewing affects me in a way that other movies don't always. Her loneliness/longing wouldn't mean anything if she didn't endure through them with such pride and optimism. If the actress didn't emote as she does. You can catch her smiling at times when she is supposed to be upset, but it's okay. The character's personality is ugly and likable at the same time. Poverty is a big theme, but she doesn't really seem to mind where she is too much. It's more that she has to live through that alone, I think. The score is dreamy, the visuals are picturesque. I wouldn't place this at the top of some top 10 list or anything, because I wouldn't make a list like that in the first place. Too many great movies out there to bother.

Yeah, to bring it up again, really don't know why Criterion thinks it necessary to darken so many of their movies so much. if you set your TV's brightness closer to recommended levels, you already get very nice contrast with the StudioCanal disc. My Sony 900e is only at 10/50. I used to have it much higher, until someone explained to me that only the HDR mode is supposed to max it out. So that it can use the full range of its limited HDR10. But doing that in SDR means constantly being blasted by many hundreds of nits and darker details becoming too visible.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Did this come out on Netflix or something and that's why yall are talking about it again?

It was available for early access streaming via Amazon Prime in my case. That $19.99 could have been better spent, but I've wasted more on worse, so whatever.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Amulet - (Prime, purchase)
Atmospheric horror about a homeless refugee (eastern European, Romanian maybe?) soldier taking shelter in an ominously dilapidated London house inhabited by an even more ominous quasi-religiously repressed lady or two. It's a slow burn for sure, gets weird after the halfway point though, which may appeal or repel some viewers depending on tastes. I found it appreciable and well crafted enough to not be a waste of time, but can see how others may not harbour patience or for the style.

The Night House - (Prime, purchase)
Woman has dead husband, left in house to pine. Then ghosts or maybe not-ghosts start engaging in their characteristicly mischievous hijinks. Maybe hubby has some secrets? Maybe hubby has been collecting ghosts like pokemon? Maybe it's all a red herring and hubby was an alien who's hologram machines start malfunctioning upon absence of maintenance? It's an overall very watchable movie with a strong central performance, skirting alongside genre clichés while not entirely indulging in them. I suppose I was fulfilled enough by the end. Though there are questions. A few. But one main one lingers beyond the credits more than anything else: what the fuck is gonna happen with those hidden bodies? Got the distinct impression she was intending on pretending nothing was wrong at the end, which is concerning to say the least. Otherwise, is recommended for most genre fans I reckon.

Tales of the Creeping Death (Prime, purchase)
Anthology of horror comedy tales. Of? The? Creeping? Death? Wish I knew more, as the streaming quality went to absolute shit after 5 minutes, so having a shamefully low tolerance for viewing films through a 5 by 7 pixel resolution meant having give it a rest till tonight when hopefully stream quality returns. Seemed alright though.

 

[BrawlMan]

Not one of Arnie's best, IMHO, but still decent. It lacks the certain something that elevates Conan or the Terminator or Total Recall.

I like Commando, but I always prefer The Running Man between the two. Commando itself is a fairly average action movie with m memorable one-liners. I will say this: without it, Predator, Rambo: First Blood Part II, and Aliens, there would be no Contra.

 

[McElroy]

Did this come out on Netflix or something and that's why yall are talking about it again?

I use bootleg streaming services, but maybe yeah. The quality doesn't do blockbusters much justice, but I'm watching on a laptop anyways.

 

[Bartholen]

Zack Snyder's Justice League, 5/10

Nothing to write home about. It's basically competent, it has a decent group dynamic with the characters who all feel balanced and it gets much better in the second half. Cyborg I actually found pretty engaging, so props for that. Beyond that it's just an entirely average superhero movie that everybody would have already forgotten if not for its unique production story. There's nothing special about the action, the visuals, the script, the story, the acting or anything really. In many ways this feels like a 13-year-old's idea of what a "mature" superhero movie means: there's lots of violence, blood and cursing, tons of people die and lipservice is paid to really heavy themes that the script simply does not have the intelligence to properly address. The movie desperately tries to tug at your heartstrings with the most emotional music it can conjure and tons of completely gratuitous slow-mo. But the emotional connection needed for these things to resonate simply isn't there, and the result is bland at best, laughable at worst.

Steppenwolf is a pathetic villain. He looks like shit. It's like the aforementioned 13-year old stuck more spikes on him to try and make him look more badass. He looks like something out of a PS3 game, and the same goes for Cyborg and the parademons. I never ever felt like the characters needed Superman to beat him despite the movie insisting so. He's made to look like a threat by nerfing everybody he fights. The amazon battle sequence was so dumb I was rolling my eyes. In the first fight the JL have against him he flees at the end for crying out loud! What was so badass about that guy that you felt necromancy was the only option?

As I'm writing this the movie is already slipping from my mind. What was that almost four hours for? At the epilogue I felt extra confused and assumed the apocalypse sequence was just Snyder shoving in a scene from a planned movie that would never happen. But then it was supposed to be part of the plot all along! Just so much of this movie feels like things are there just because Snyder wanted them in the movie, no matter how overstuffed they made the end product. "I wanna do Steppenwolf, and I wanna do Justice League, and I wanna do evil Superman, and I want the black Superman suit, and I want Darkseid, and I want big epic LOTR style battles" etc. The end result is just a bunch of stuff, like a box full of random action figures. And let's not forget the 4:3 aspect ratio and the titled chapters that add absolutely fuck-all to the film. They're just there to make the film appear more artsy.

I can't say I was disappointed though, I only watched this out of curiosity. Never going to watch this again, but I'm not ruling out the possibility that I'll forget I ever watched this in the first place.

 

[gorfias]

Borg vs. McEnroe: HBO 7/10. It's good.
1980 and Borg is going for Wimbledon 5, McEnroe the young hotshot and a$$hole trying to win his 1st.
You get to see a little behind the curtain of two men who are known for what they do: play a game better than anyone else on Earth.
They're both a bit tense all the time
You get to be reminded why this was such an amazing game too. Worth a watch.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Borg vs. McEnroe: HBO 7/10. It's good.
1980 and Borg is going for Wimbledon 5, McEnroe the young hotshot and a$$hole trying to win his 1st.
You get to see a little behind the curtain of two men who are known for what they do: play a game better than anyone else on Earth.
They're both a bit tense all the time.
You get to be reminded why this was such an amazing game too. Worth a watch.

I love these kinds of films; I'll have to check that out.

Now I can sit on my hands and wait a couple decades for the movie about Lewis Hamilton vs. Max Verstappen rivalry in the 2021 Formula 1 World Driver's Championship. (It's coming; I promise you.) Though, in all honesty, with David Croft's animated commentary and the drama already on display podium after podium, producers could just save themselves the hassle and string together all the races in a single 40-hour long movie, and it'd be cheaper than hiring actors, a director, script writers, etc.; the drama was THAT prevalent in real time.

 

[thebobmaster]

Just got back from Doctor Strange 2. Whoo, boy.

Positives first. The film is gorgeous. Sam Raimi really knows how to direct out-there scenes, and his touch is all over this film. It really works to set a film that has memorable set pieces, as well as just out-there stuff. The acting is all pretty good as well, especially the various Benedict Cumberbatches, who manages to pull off several different forms of Strange without any of them really feeling identical to each other. Similar, but enough differences to believe they are alternate universes. The weakest point acting wise is probably Xochitl Gomez as America Chavez, but I chalk that more up to inexperience than anything, and she isn't terrible, just not as good as the others.

HOWEVER, the movie has one big weakness, and for me, this is a weakness that can truly sink any action movie or superhero film...and that's the villain. I won't spoil it, but all I'll say is that the villain is one of the most poorly written I've seen out of the MCU in a while. I don't mean in terms of complexity, because IN THEORY, the villain has plenty of complexity. However, as written, they just come off as flat-out sociopathic, moreso than I think was intended given how everything wraps up. In addition, while having a strong villain is one thing, this was a step beyond that, where it seemed the only thing that would stop the villain in the end was the script.

I don't regret watching the movie, and I did have a good time watching it for the most part, but when it stumbled, it fell down HARD, and that makes it impossible for me to say it was more than average, despite how well-made it was on a technical level. It's not the worst MCU movie to me, but it may be the most disappointing, I'll have to wait and let it digest more to figure it out.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I won't spoil it, but all I'll say is that the villain is one of the most poorly written I've seen out of the MCU in a while. I don't mean in terms of complexity, because IN THEORY, the villain has plenty of complexity. However, as written, they just come off as flat-out sociopathic, moreso than I think was intended given how everything wraps up.

I don't know if I would call them "sociopathic", or even psychopathic. To me I would just call it generically crazy, because of how easily it was resolved in the end. I know we were expected to believe that the villain was corrupted by a certain plot device, but this corruption occurs entirely off screen. If we were at least given hints of the villains original personality trying to shine through the corruption, I think it would have been much more believable.

Zack Snyder's Justice League, 5/10
Just so much of this movie feels like things are there just because Snyder wanted them in the movie, no matter how overstuffed they made the end product. "I wanna do Steppenwolf, and I wanna do Justice League, and I wanna do evil Superman, and I want the black Superman suit, and I want Darkseid, and I want big epic LOTR style battles" etc.

Not that I'm defending this movie, but that is essentially what this "movie" was always going to be. Not the "real" version of Justice League that Snyder fans believe was being kept away in the WB vault, but just whatever random bullshit Synder wanted to do, either back when he was the director or after the original movie came out, common sense be damned.

Anyway, I maintain that while this version is definitively better than the Whedon cut, I'd be hard pressed to actually call it great as a whole. Any goodwill I have with this movie is due to it being an improvement over the theatrical cut. But if this was what released to theaters, even a greatly cut down version of maybe 2 and a half hours, I'd still come away chuckling at how badly the DCEU has been fucking it up since it started.

 

[Bartholen]

Anyway, I maintain that while this version is definitively better than the Whedon cut, I'd be hard pressed to actually call it great as a whole. Any goodwill I have with this movie is due to it being an improvement over the theatrical cut. But if this was what released to theaters, even a greatly cut down version of maybe 2 and a half hours, I'd still come away chuckling at how badly the DCEU has been fucking it up since it started.

In a perverse way what happened to the Justice League was in the end a boon for Snyder's version. If production had gone as planned, the released version would probably be forgotten already as basically competent, but not even close to actually good. But because of what happened and Whedon's version turning out as total sludge, Snyder's version now has this completely unearned reputation as the "true" or "definitive" version that was unjustly denied release. Until the valiant redditor brigades triumphed over the evil executives and freed this glorious holy grail from its prison. But that impression won't last, and if the Snyder cut is remembered at all in 10 years' time, the luster provided by that narrative will have long faded.

 

[Ezekiel]

The Game (1997)

David Fincher, with Michael Douglas. Hard to say what I wanna say without giving it away. Ludicrously far-fetched, but what a ride.

 

[Xprimentyl]

The Game (1997)

David Fincher, with Michael Douglas. Hard to say what I wanna say without giving it away. Ludicrously far-fetched, but what a ride.

Yeah, whenever I recommend it to someone who hasn't seen it, it's usually just "ok, then watch it." Sadly, it was ruined for me by my sister who exclaimed the nature of the film from another room of the house loudly enough to be heard by me (she's a dingbat.)

 

[Thaluikhain]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

Room for improvement, but surprisingly decent.

 

[BrawlMan]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

Room for improvement, but surprisingly decent.

I consider TMNT (2014) a 7/10, while Out of the Shadows is an 8/10. Both of these movies have their many fans, but there were so many Michael Bay haters, even though he was not a director and producer only. He let the writers and director do whatever they wanted for most the most part. So whatever changes were made in writing or done differently weren't even his fault. I still hate Bay's movies, but I am not gonna blame for every single fault in films where he only acts as producer.

 

[Piscian]

Borg vs. McEnroe: HBO 7/10. It's good.
1980 and Borg is going for Wimbledon 5, McEnroe the young hotshot and a$$hole trying to win his 1st.
You get to see a little behind the curtain of two men who are known for what they do: play a game better than anyone else on Earth.
They're both a bit tense all the time
You get to be reminded why this was such an amazing game too. Worth a watch.

Thats funny I just randomly rewatched this as well. Id put it at an 8/10 personally. It really takes a path less traveled by characterizing them both as profoundly unlikable, but for different compelling reasons.

It makes me think of movies like RUSH and Ford vs Ferrari that while good fun are, for me, too cloying and obsessed with inspirational storytelling over just letting the already fantastic story tell itself.

I like that this movie really just focuses on the disposition of these types of athletes. Its not perfect, but I think its another good showing of shia Labeoufs talent when hes not out being the worst person ever.

 

[Gordon_4]

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Yep, enjoyed the hell out of that one. I’d say it was surprisingly gory and horror show at times but it’s a Sam Raimi movie. But it works gangbusters. Worth a watch.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016)

After watching the first one I'd hoped it'd be of similar quality, but unfortunately it turned out much more like I'd been afraid the first would be.

Oddly, this might be because the first movie didn't focus so much on the turtles, it was Megan Fox being a weird reporter which worked better.

 

[BrawlMan]

Oddly, this might be because the first movie didn't focus so much on the turtles, it was Megan Fox being a weird reporter which worked better.

I did not mind April getting bigger focus on the first 20 minutes in 2014, but it's a decision that could not happen a second time. I am glad they chose focusing on the turtles. It's their movie. For me, most of the human characters are the weakest elements to Out of the Shadows (which is why they're not seen as much, and even I think the film makers knew this). Aside from Bebop and Rocksteady pre-mutation. Casey Jones has his backstory changed for no reason, and Shredder nor Karai get to do less and even less respectively. The Turtles are done even better, and I like the development they go through in the movie.

Action wise, the movie is good, as long as it's not human on human fighting. Whenever it's a CG creature fight or human on CG creature fight, the actions scenes are done great with a camera that knows to keep still. Whenever it's human on human, they do the dumb quick cut and shaky-cam trend that was already tiring and near dead at that time. It's not the worst case, but something that does not belong in a kids film, and not in a ninja turtle film. You are not Bourne Identity! The only other flaw with the final action scene is that while good, is a halfway repeat of the final fight with Shredder in the first film, except it's Kraang this time.

 

[Offworlder]

Finally saw No Time To Die. Some parts feel like ‘classic’ Bond, shootouts in exotic bars etc etc. But it actually hit on modern themes and fears, as well as Craig putting in his best acting performance as Bond. I think they tried a bit too hard with Spectre and missed the mark, but this one seems like what that was supposed to be. They actually took the time with the story and wrapped up Craig's arc neatly which is nice. The action and music was great too, the shootouts at the end were fantastic and the score was one of the best I've heard in a modern Bond. I particularly enjoyed the We Have All The Time In The World throwbacks. They completely wasted Rami Malek though, was in far too few scenes to be effective and when he was he was boring. Making a Bond film that long was a mistake too. That being said I think Fukunaga should helm the next few films, he's done a good job thus far. He knows how to make Bond human and that will be vital with whoever steps into the role.

One thing that's gone under the radar recently is how well they’ve recast the backup crew (M, Q, Moneypenny), in the next one they only need a new Bond and they’re set. Its kind sad seeing Craig in his last one tho. I’ve never seen nerds ***** so hard about a casting and then he hits back with an argument to be the the BEST one ever and is involved in two of the best Bond movies ever made.

All in all it was a very good action/adventure film that set the series up for the future, which is all us fans could have hoped for.