Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[PsychedelicDiamond]

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Martin McDonagh's new movie, reuniting Brandon Gleeson and Colin Farrell who previously starred in his debut In Bruges. Banshees is, simply put, a tragicomedy about two middle aged men in 1920's rural Ireland falling out for no specific reason. Gleeson's Colm one day just decides that he's bored of Farrell's Padraic and wants nothing to do with him anymore. This marks the start of one of the most passive aggressive feuds ever put to cinema.

Banshees of Inisherin is certainly a lot closer to the tragic end of the tragicomedy label than to the comedic one. The fictional island of Inisherin embodies hell as imagined by Sartre, an oppressive accumulation of petty human cruelty that will, one way or another, wear you down. Something as minor as two drinking buddies having a fight with each other ruins at least two lives. The movie draws some clear parallels to the Irish civil war that's going on on the mainland while the events on Inisherin play out, but Banshees is very much about the crushing bleakness of provincial life before anything else.

Martin McDonagh once again proves his aptitude for writing engaging dialogue. Where works like In Bruges and 7 Psychopaths might have suggested another Tarantino imitator, what with their witty banter between fast talking criminals, Banshees points more towards his background in theater. Many of the conversations are slow, meandering, failing to address the actual interpersonal problems at the heart of them, simply on the virtue of being exchanged between early 20th century yokels that have neither the vocabulary nor the insight into their own emotional lives to articulate them to each other.

It is very much a character drama at its most straight forward. Nothing happens that isn't caused by the actions and reactions of its people towards each other. People who, for the most part, are hard to have much sympathy with. Stubborn country folk, too old and drunk to work out their problems in a way that isn't destructive towards each other and towards themselves. Kerry Condon, playing Padraic's sister Siobhan stands out as the sole voice of reason in the entire village. Needless to say, she leaves the movie before the start of the final act.

Banshees of Inisherin is a bleak movie about human conflict at its most pointless. It has a couple of laughs, but most of it is as harsh as its beautifully framed irish landscapes. It's about people who are brimming with resentment towards the banality of their own life and the harmful ways that resentment expresses itself.

Banshees is overall a solid movie both in writing and direction, a thoroughly well executed drama. It will certainly appeal to those fascinated with some of the more frustrating aspects of human nature. If only for both Farrell and Gleeson turning in very strong performances. That said, it also dedicates perhaps an unnecessary amount of time to a story that's ultimately very simple and oftentimes feels very stagey in a way that even its wide angle shots don't distract from. It's a typical "I liked it fine" movie. Good, not great, overall worth a watch.

 

[Bartholen]

Grave of the Fireflies, 10/10

I'd been very deliberately avoiding watching this movie for over a decade. I have a pretty strong aversion to seeing children in distress in general, and given this movie's infamous reputation I'd sooner have watched almost literally anything else. Alas, it was set as one of the movies for my small movie club, so it was time to face the music.

Good thing it turns out it wasn't nearly as bad in that regard as I was expecting. Edgerunners elicited a considerably stronger reaction from me. I knew ahead of time how it was going to end, but not how it gets there. So I was expecting absolute, abject misery and soul-destroying sadness to be the third act. Instead it's very restrained and subdued, downright soothing in certain regards. That's not to say there weren't moments where I had a profoundly visceral reaction, but those were over soon and not dwelt on, which is good. Given the target audience for this film at the time of its release, anything more than those few moments of gut-wrenching sorrow would have been too much.

I'd heard this movie described as a guilt-tripping piece of misery porn by some, but I didn't get that impression at all. To me this registered more as a scathing condemnation of toxic pride, and the bushido warrior culture that permeated Japan at the time. There are a few crucial moments where Seita makes the wrong choice due to his need to be a big strong man, and that's what dooms them both in the end. There is a haunting shot near the beginning where Setsuko is crying in a fetal position while Seita is doing gymnastics trying to "cheer her up", but unable to face her. While there are scenes depicting the worst things that can happen to someone, there is a sense that things could have gone differently had he simply swallowed his pride. There's a pretty heavy implication between the lines that that's also the reason why we see him haggard and begging at a train station in the beginning. The aforementioned scenes are heart-wrenching, but never done in a leering "LOOK AT HOW THEY SUFFER" way.

This will be added to my list of movies that simply need to be animated. Which is weird, because I felt The Wind Rises absolutely didn't justify its animated presentation, and that film depicts the same era but with a lot more fantastical elements. The difference is that you could never get good enough child actors in live action to reach the impact this film has. While Ayano Shiraishi's performance (this being her only film credit) strikes the perfect note in every scene, you could never replicate that with cameras and crew around you. You need animation where every expression and tiny facial tic is tightly controlled to marry the voice performance with the visuals. And having just browsed Wikipedia, I'm happy to say the author of the original book agrees with me.

Beyond what this film is most famous for it's every bit up to the Ghibli standard: the artwork is gorgeous, the subdued musical score matches every occasion it's used perfectly, and the animation's great even if notedly less showy than basically any other Ghibli film. It's hard to grade it, because my perspective was skewed from dreading it so much, but I'll settle on an 8/10 for now. EDIT: Yeah, I can't really find any criticisms for this movie. It is masterfully executed, timeless, and devastatingly effective at what it sets out to do. Every bit worthy of its status as an all-time classic. Perhaps the best film I'll never want to watch again.

 

[Piscian]

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Martin McDonagh's new movie, reuniting Brandon Gleeson and Colin Farrell who previously starred in his debut In Bruges. Banshees is, simply put, a tragicomedy about two middle aged men in 1920's rural Ireland falling out for no specific reason. Gleeson's Colm one day just decides that he's bored of Farrell's Padraic and wants nothing to do with him anymore. This marks the start of one of the most passive aggressive feuds ever put to cinema.

Banshees of Inisherin is certainly a lot closer to the tragic end of the tragicomedy label than to the comedic one. The fictional island of Inisherin embodies hell as imagined by Sartre, an oppressive accumulation of petty human cruelty that will, one way or another, wear you down. Something as minor as two drinking buddies having a fight with each other ruins at least two lives. The movie draws some clear parallels to the Irish civil war that's going on on the mainland while the events on Inisherin play out, but Banshees is very much about the crushing bleakness of provincial life before anything else.

Martin McDonagh once again proves his aptitude for writing engaging dialogue. Where works like In Bruges and 7 Psychopaths might have suggested another Tarantino imitator, what with their witty banter between fast talking criminals, Banshees points more towards his background in theater. Many of the conversations are slow, meandering, failing to address the actual interpersonal problems at the heart of them, simply on the virtue of being exchanged between early 20th century yokels that have neither the vocabulary nor the insight into their own emotional lives to articulate them to each other.

It is very much a character drama at its most straight forward. Nothing happens that isn't caused by the actions and reactions of its people towards each other. People who, for the most part, are hard to have much sympathy with. Stubborn country folk, too old and drunk to work out their problems in a way that isn't destructive towards each other and towards themselves. Kerry Condon, playing Padraic's sister Siobhan stands out as the sole voice of reason in the entire village. Needless to say, she leaves the movie before the start of the final act.

Banshees of Inisherin is a bleak movie about human conflict at its most pointless. It has a couple of laughs, but most of it is as harsh as its beautifully framed irish landscapes. It's about people who are brimming with resentment towards the banality of their own life and the harmful ways that resentment expresses itself.

Banshees is overall a solid movie both in writing and direction, a thoroughly well executed drama. It will certainly appeal to those fascinated with some of the more frustrating aspects of human nature. If only for both Farrell and Gleeson turning in very strong performances. That said, it also dedicates perhaps an unnecessary amount of time to a story that's ultimately very simple and oftentimes feels very stagey in a way that even its wide angle shots don't distract from. It's a typical "I liked it fine" movie. Good, not great, overall worth a watch.

I'll give Banshees one thing. I saw it weeks ago and I still think about it. I was thinking this morning that at the end of it Brandon Gleeson's character got what he wanted. His life is now profoundly more interesting than before he snubbed Padraic. He's now got all the muse for as many songs as he'd like.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

I did an Anya-taylor joy double feature this week. The Menu and then Last Night in Soho . The Menu I watch a few days ago...Last Night in Soho took me the other 3 days to get through.

The Menu - 9/10 The easy answer is that it's great. Spoiling the trailer right now, no it's not gross horror. You're safe to watch if you're afraid it's gonna be gory. It's a Bleak Comedy Horror. I think if you enjoyed Midsommar and The Bear you're gonna like it just fine. If I had any complaint it's that the character cast isn't very three dimensional. This isn't Glass Onion bad, these are all fairly realistic recognizable stereotypes, but with the exception of a couple high-lights much of the group is vapid socialites. I'm not sure he's even in the trailer, but aside from Anya and Raph, John Leguizamo's character stands out as a celebrity that is stereotypical, but very aware of his flaws and I appreciated that bit of humanizing. Nicholas Holt fucking hilarious as always. I'm getting to this point where I'll watch whatever he's in. I liked Anya, she was fine, however one issue that's gonna follow her, her whole career is that she looks like an elf out of one of Jean-Baptiste Monge's art books. It's impossible to watch her play a normal person, which she is here. I suspect she's aware of this because I don't think I've seen her play anything other than crazy people and serial killers. I'd be curious know if that's intentional. She seems to love the horror genre.

Last Night in Soho 5/10- Man I think I really get why this movie didn't take off. I was sooo fucking bored. I like the ideas, I like the acting, but I was just not engaged the entire time. I was constantly taking breaks or playing on my phone. I think my other problem is that I felt like I've seen this before the entire time, it's another one of those bland horror movies where somebody is haunted until they solve a murder. I realized towards the end that this is pretty much a bad stir of echos. It's got a kind of interesting twist, but it takes too long to get there and there's no edge to it. No biting wit or dialog here. It's doesn't help that the Ghosts are pure ugly CGI. I'm also kinda surprised to say the trailer sold this on being a bit of a musical, but it never really celebrates music. It dabs in some real bangers here and there, but if you go in thinking this is going to be like an intense musical 60s gothic horror it's not. Its most just a by the numbers ghostie murder crime movie.

I will grant LNIS one thing, I had no idea "I've got my mind set on you" was a cover. Love you George, but the original smokes the cover.

I remember being really into seeing Last Night in Soho because it's directed by Edgar Wright and the trailer was awesome. But movie was at best a "meh" for me as well.

I'm not saying there wasn't value in a blue rabbits learn to swim montage, but that this film could have been severely edited down and lost nothing.

There was a MONTAGE in the movie?!?!

 

[Piscian]

I remember being really into seeing Last Night in Soho because it's directed by Edgar Wright and the trailer was awesome. But movie was at best a "meh" for me as well.



There was a MONTAGE in the movie?!?!

A few of them actually.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Alice in Wonderland, the Tim Burton one.

I bought this on DVD for $2 at a charity shop, and I don't know if that was a good investment. This was just awful. I know CGI and cliched zaniness is a replacement for...anything else, especially for Burton, but this is the sort of thing I'd expect and AI to create after watching too many bad high budget films. Everyone and everything is there to throw quirkiness at the screen.

Except, oddly, for the White Queen played by Anne Hathaway, who limits herself to holding her hands at shoulder height all the time, being a bit twirly and wearing too much makeup, like a somewhat OtT fairy princess in a not terrible film, and was rather watchable. Possibly because everything that wasn't Anne Hathaway wasn't watchable, though.

Boo! Boooo! Massive commercial success, of course. Boooooo!

 

[Asita]

The Pale Blue Eye

Another Detective story, this one set at West Point Academy in the late 1800s. Short version is that retired Detective Landor (Christian Bale) is called in not to investigate the hanging and subsequent corpse desecration (heart was cut out postmortem) of one of West Point's cadets. He quickly ropes in another cadet to assist in his investigation, one Edgar Allen Poe (yes, that Edgar Allen Poe, portrayed by Harry Melling). After about a month of not making much progress...another victim shows up with his corpse similarly mutilated.

While the story isn't painful by any stretch, I wouldn't really say it's worth watching. There's not much of a sense of forward progress for much of the film and...frankly, the ending feels unnecessary and usurps what was arguably a narratively superior solution.

Spoiler: The Red Herring

For much of the film, the story had set up the idea that the murders had been performed as part of 'black magic' rituals. Now, to be clear, the story does not actually imply real magic, just that the murderer believed in such magic. This comes to a head when the Poe's love interest and her family abducts him and starts bleeding him out so that they can sacrifice him. See, that love interest had suffered random seizures her whole life, and as traditional medicine did not seem to help, the family started trying magic in their desperation, and were using the hearts of the victims for that purpose. The apparent murderers themselves die in the ensuing scuffle, and their parents (who were complicit) were disgraced and left to mourn.

And that's a reasonably satisfying conclusion which keeps everything neat, tidy, and gives a certain tragic element to the crimes. They were not done out of fanaticism or hatred, but sheer desperation and a willingness to sacrifice others to save someone they loved.

Spoiler: The Actual Solution

Cue then Poe waking up, having had the epiphany that the handwriting of the fragment of a note found clenched in the fist of the first victim was the same as that of Detective Landor himself. Poe further elaborates that after deducing that, he had found out what had actually happened to Landor's daughter, and concluded that that was the true motive for the murders. As it turns out, while the red herring family had taken the heart of the first victim, their only attempted murder was that of Poe himself in the climax.

See, a few years previously, Landor's daughter had gone to her first ball at West Point, and on the way back she was accosted, assaulted and gang raped by three cadets (the two victims, with the third accomplice still at large but implied to be running scared). Never fully recovering from the trauma of it, she ended up committing suicide right in front of Landor. Landor sought out the first of the assailants and killed him, but had to flee the scene of the crime before he could dispose of the body. The red herring family found the body and - seeing the once in a lifetime opportunity - took its heart for their purposes. Landor eventually found and killed the second assailant, this time mutilating the corpse himself to make it look like the work of the same kind of 'madman'.

Landor doesn't contest this, and makes no effort to dissuade Poe from turning him in, even softly encouraging it. Poe then burns the papers he had implicating Landor, and Landor laments that if Poe had been the one to find his daughter that night, not only would she still be alive, but they may have gotten along so well as to marry.

Not to mince words, the actual solution feels...gratuitous. It's a twist for twist's sake that doesn't really add to the story and ends up turning a more interesting and engaging motive (and most of the evidence to boot) into a red herring. And on a more technically frustrating note, it seemed like the entire cast spent the movie somewhere between mumbling and whispering, making it a strain to hear what the characters were telling us.

Honestly, I'd say that you're safe to pass on this one.

 

[Bartholen]

Some futher thoughts on Grave of the Fireflies after a night's sleep:

Spoiler: These are all spoilers

The more I think about it, the more I reject the characterization of this movie as some sort of misery porn. It's actually almost the exact opposite: it rejects almost every opportunity it has to become a Hollywood-style weepy tearjerker, or even have a single scene like that.

1. When the firebombings happen in the beginning, we see that Setsuko's doll is clearly important to her. "Oh, so that's going to be taken away at some point and it's gonna be really sad" I thought. And then it didn't. The doll stays with her throughout the whole movie, and is never brought up again save for being in the background.
2. The mother is fatally burned and is dying in the hospital all bandaged up. I was expecting a horrific farewell scene where Seita and Setsuko speak with her one last time... and then they don't. She doesn't even get last words, she just passes away quietly off screen, and Setsuko doesn't even see her after the first firebombings.
3. Seita hides the fact that their mother is actually dead from Setsuko. Oh, it's gonna be a really sad scene when she finds out, right? Nope. We find out later that she's known basically the whole time and just didn't bring it up.
4. The siblings go live with her aunt who gets more and more irate with them over time. "Oh, she's going to get physically abusive and kick them out and it's gonna be really sad" I thought. And then she doesn't. She just snaps at them and berates them, but she never kicks them out, they make that choice themselves.
5. They go to live in an empty shelter on the side of a hill. They're gonna be forced to homelessness and it's gonna be really sad, right? And then it's not. Like, they're basically hobos, but all things considered they live pretty comfortably for a while.
6. Some boys show up at their shelter when they're away. Oh no, they're gonna steal all their stuff, here's where the abject misery kicks in, right? Well It doesn't. They just goof around for a bit and then leave, and it has zero bearing on the plot at all.
7. One of the clips I'd seen beforehand is when the siblings hide from the plane shooting at them. That's what I assumed the movie would be like: them traveling cross country, Seita trying in vain to protect Setsuko. Well nope, it's literally just a few seconds, and the scene is actually about them finding tomatoes to eat.

I could go on but the point is made. This movie is actually pretty similar to its contemporary My Neighbor Totoro in this regard: that movie too has multiple scenes that could be an inciting incident, and then just aren't: the susuwatari are just something that happens, outside there's just a gust of wind, Mei is found perfectly fine in the forest nearby etc. Grave of the Fireflies' story is powerful enough on its own that it doesn't need any scenes underlining or drawing specific attention to its tragedy. The fact that we get to know the characters so well before their demise is effective enough.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Just finished Top Gun Maverick. Everything to do with planes and dogfighting? Fucking fantastic. Everything else? Incredibly, almost hilariously, generic.

The whole Jennifer Conelly character was kind of embarrassing. The family was just annoyed when she came on. It was kinda weird how they killed off Val Kilmer's character when the actor has the same illness as the character but is still, you know... alive.

Now I want to watch Devotion, which also has Glenn Powell and is about dogfighting, except is in WWII and apparently bombed hard.

Edit: Haha! Accidental pun!

 

[Gordon_4]

Just finished Top Gun Maverick. Everything to do with planes and dogfighting? Fucking fantastic. Everything else? Incredibly, almost hilariously, generic.

The whole Jennifer Conelly character was kind of embarrassing. The family was just annoyed when she came on. It was kinda weird how they killed off Val Kilmer's character when the actor has the same illness as the character but is still, you know... alive.

Now I want to watch Devotion, which also has Glenn Powell and is about dogfighting, except is in WWII and apparently bombed hard.

Edit: Haha! Accidental pun!

I'll be honest, after watching both movies back to back, Connelly's character seems like a much more natural fit for Maverick than Charlie was. I mean I understand Mav's attraction, but he and Penny seemed to connect on a more emotional level. But to each his own.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I'll be honest, after watching both movies back to back, Connelly's character seems like a much more natural fit for Maverick than Charlie was. I mean I understand Mav's attraction, but he and Penny seemed to connect on a more emotional level. But to each his own.

I haven't watched the first Top Gun in more than a decade, so honestly I have no idea who Charlie is. But I didn't think Connelly did poorly. Hell I thought she was charismatic and I agree she had chemistry with Cruise. I just don't think it was necessary, especially when Rooster and his colleagues felt under baked. And the way their relationship was portrayed felt like a cheesy romance flick from when I was still in diapers. I mean that was probably intentional, as a reference to the age of cinema that Connelly and Cruise started in, but I couldn't take it seriously. Just very cliched, literally riding off into the sunset.

I dunno, in my opinion the excellence of all the action sequences ended up highlighting the seemingly low effort put into other aspects of the film. Every time some unknown actor half heartedly delivered their poorly written lines, I was questioning how this could be the same movie that put on a visual and auditory masterpiece just 3 minutes earlier.

Anyway, if I'm sounding too negative, I guess I was just expecting a lot more from the movie given all the praise I've heard for it. And I still think it was a great and enjoyable movie, just a tad uneven.

 

[Gordon_4]

I haven't watched the first Top Gun in more than a decade, so honestly I have no idea who Charlie is. But I didn't think Connelly did poorly. Hell I thought she was charismatic and I agree she had chemistry with Cruise. I just don't think it was necessary, especially when Rooster and his colleagues felt under baked. And the way their relationship was portrayed felt like a cheesy romance flick from when I was still in diapers. I mean that was probably intentional, as a reference to the age of cinema that Connelly and Cruise started in, but I couldn't take it seriously. Just very cliched, literally riding off into the sunset.

I dunno, in my opinion the excellence of all the action sequences ended up highlighting the seemingly low effort put into other aspects of the film. Every time some unknown actor half heartedly delivered their poorly written lines, I was questioning how this could be the same movie that put on a visual and auditory masterpiece just 3 minutes earlier.

Anyway, if I'm sounding too negative, I guess I was just expecting a lot more from the movie given all the praise I've heard for it. And I still think it was a great and enjoyable movie, just a tad uneven.

Charlie was the civilian instructor, Cruise's love interest in the first one. And I don't disagree that the movie's uneven at times - you should check out 'Mover Ruins Movies' and see his thoughts because I have a weird feeling they may mirror some of your own. I think I'm just SO into jet fighter porn, and the F-14 in particular that I truly didn't give much of a shit about the other aviators aside from Rooster. And maybe Phoenix and Bob.

 

[Ag3ma]

I haven't watched the first Top Gun in more than a decade, so honestly I have no idea who Charlie is. But I didn't think Connelly did poorly. Hell I thought she was charismatic and I agree she had chemistry with Cruise. I just don't think it was necessary, especially when Rooster and his colleagues felt under baked. And the way their relationship was portrayed felt like a cheesy romance flick from when I was still in diapers. I mean that was probably intentional, as a reference to the age of cinema that Connelly and Cruise started in, but I couldn't take it seriously. Just very cliched, literally riding off into the sunset.

Connelly's character is fine within its remit: it's just a modest one as she's there for Cruise to hit on, because it's expected in that sort of film that the hero gets his girl. Except the characters are in the later stretch of middle age so it needs to reflect that with some maturity and a child. So clearly Maverick is supposed to be given some sort of depth - it seems to me we are being told his life is sort of a bit emotionally empty and unfulfilled. But the real heft is his vicarious fatherhood for the son of his old navigator, Goose, which perhaps rendered Connelly's character a little superfluous. IIRC he's warned not to sweep into her life, and then drift out and hurt her (again). Do you get the feeling that at the end Mav has found some closure on his adrenaline-soaked life and is ready to settle down? Because I didn't, and that left a faint off note.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Piggy - (Prime, purchase)
Spanish film about a young girl who has trouble with ppl being shite kunts to her about her weight cause kids are are kunts. Except now there's a serial killer. Who kills the other teens and ppl but never her. This is filmed in the old school 4:3 format, for reasons I'm not sure are necessary but no deal breaker. It may not be for some other people though. It also takes itself mostly quite seriously. And I do appreciate the humour it does use isn't derived from the protagonist's body size (there was a pretty good chuckle moment about 3/4 of the way through). It's all rather well done. The only issue is the killer actor comes off a bit too uncreepy, or unthreatening. He got this wide eyed eager acting look, but also kinda baby-faced, moves like a cartoon, and just not believable as a killer outside of the world of theatre. Still, an interesting curiosity with a perfect main performance from the young lass.

 

[Piscian]

Just finished Top Gun Maverick. Everything to do with planes and dogfighting? Fucking fantastic. Everything else? Incredibly, almost hilariously, generic.

The whole Jennifer Conelly character was kind of embarrassing. The family was just annoyed when she came on. It was kinda weird how they killed off Val Kilmer's character when the actor has the same illness as the character but is still, you know... alive.

Now I want to watch Devotion, which also has Glenn Powell and is about dogfighting, except is in WWII and apparently bombed hard.

Edit: Haha! Accidental pun!

I watched it this morning. Idk, It was fine. To be honest I found a lot of the dialog kinda silly and over the top like just dailed up to 11. It didn't help that everyone kept using call signs even in like serious military discussion settings. I have trouble believing an officer would refer to the admiral as "ice" or "iceman". Like in friendly casual setting or while on mission sure, sometimes it sounded so silly. Nearly every line in the film is really hammy. If you like just let yourself "go with it" its ok, but there were a couple moments I laughed unintentionally at.

I would concur all the plane stuff was fun, though they jumped like 5 school buses full of sharks at the end. Again though it all kinda fits into the namesake 80's action film style so whatever. 7/10 for me but Ive probably watched topgun twice in my life so I was not particularly invested. If Im completely honest I did not spend an insignificant amount of time analyzing scenes where they couldn't hide how old Tom Cruise is. At one point they reference that he taught flight school "30 years ago". Thats a quote. So Im struggling to figure out if the movie wants you to believe hes 30, 40, or 60.

 

[gorfias]

I watched it this morning. Idk, It was fine. To be honest I found a lot of the dialog kinda silly and over the top like just dailed up to 11. It didn't help that everyone kept using call signs even in like serious military discussion settings. I have trouble believing an officer would refer to the admiral as "ice" or "iceman". Like in friendly casual setting or while on mission sure, sometimes it sounded so silly. Nearly every line in the film is really hammy. If you like just let yourself "go with it" its ok, but there were a couple moments I laughed unintentionally at.

I would concur all the plane stuff was fun, though they jumped like 5 school buses full of sharks at the end. Again though it all kinda fits into the namesake 80's action film style so whatever. 7/10 for me but Ive probably watched topgun twice in my life so I was not particularly invested. If Im completely honest I did not spend an insignificant amount of time analyzing scenes where they couldn't hide how old Tom Cruise is. At one point they reference that he taught flight school "30 years ago". Thats a quote. So Im struggling to figure out if the movie wants you to believe hes 30, 40, or 60.

There is so much streaming content out there these days I virtually never buy anything anymore. In the last 5 years I've bought maybe 8 movies total, if that. And Top Gun: Maverick was one. This is after seeing it in the theater twice.
Everyone's critique of the movie are all true enough. And I didn't much like the 1st one. There are some action scenes, they go to school, and then there is a final action scene. And the filming in the first is pretty pedestrian by comparison to this new one that gives us a mission impossible at the start.

This one just seemed to know how to hit all of my buttons. As I watched, I knew they were manipulating me as well as hitting me in the memberberries but it all worked. The cheesy, hammy human parts fit the overall narrative for me. Kinda like the 1st Avatar. I know everyone was speaking like cartoon cutout characters, but I'm having so much fun watching it all I didn't care.

And

Spoiler

that they were able to shoe in an F14 final scene, even though that bird is, "so old" was such a hoot!

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

X

It's an artsy slasher film. It takes its time, it deals with old age and lust, it plays around with ponderous editing choices, it engages in running meta commentary and has a great double act by Mia Goth... but at the end of the day, dunno, it really does boil down to one more slasher film. Very well made though.

 

[Gordon_4]

I watched it this morning. Idk, It was fine. To be honest I found a lot of the dialog kinda silly and over the top like just dailed up to 11. It didn't help that everyone kept using call signs even in like serious military discussion settings. I have trouble believing an officer would refer to the admiral as "ice" or "iceman". Like in friendly casual setting or while on mission sure, sometimes it sounded so silly. Nearly every line in the film is really hammy. If you like just let yourself "go with it" its ok, but there were a couple moments I laughed unintentionally at.

I would concur all the plane stuff was fun, though they jumped like 5 school buses full of sharks at the end. Again though it all kinda fits into the namesake 80's action film style so whatever. 7/10 for me but Ive probably watched topgun twice in my life so I was not particularly invested. If Im completely honest I did not spend an insignificant amount of time analyzing scenes where they couldn't hide how old Tom Cruise is. At one point they reference that he taught flight school "30 years ago". Thats a quote. So Im struggling to figure out if the movie wants you to believe hes 30, 40, or 60.

Well, as I recall they are serious discussions but they are also private ones. When Warlock introduces Maverick he specifically calls him by name, and then says his callsign. And every time Cyclone refers to Iceman by that name, it’s a closed session between himself, Warlock and Maverick: three people who know the man very well.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Halloween Ends - (NowTV)
I tried. I seriously fucking tried. But got bored like 15 minutes in and switched to (the far superior) Cabinet of Curiosities on Netflix instead. How did they make this so dull? It's astonishing. There is no passion or curiousity in any shot or scene where it supposed to grab your attention, is just all uninteresting people talking uninteresting shite in uninteresting environments. Having recently rewatched Whiplash, there's such a stark contrast where even a half second shot of someone scribbling on music notation is visually arresting and exciting. But this? This meandering mumble of myopic disassociation cannot be arsed. Being accidentally spoiled in what the film tries to do, it did actually sound interesting as a concept. However, am fucked if I got anywhere close to any of that content, so kudos for making an already bland concept of a serial killer somehow even more dull. What is going on back there, eh? Cabinet of Curiosities cared though, which sorted the rest of the evening out and buried this disappointment beneath a cosy couple of layers of spliff and spirits. Is it fair to have watched Whiplash right before this? To compare the two? Umm, yes! You bloody idiot, xsjadoblayde, what a stupid question, gtfo of here!

 

[Ag3ma]

Another Round (2020)

Danish film directed by Thomas Vinterberg and starring Mads Mikkelsen, about some demoralised, middle-aged teachers who are struggling with their lives and jobs so decide to carry out an experiment based on the (unscientific!) theory that humans have an alcohol deficit of 0.5% blood content. If they drink this amount, just enough to be short of drunk, they will do their jobs better as they are more confident and voluble. So they all set out to maintain a "healthy" alcohol level during their work, with strict rules to not drive, or drink after 8pm and at weekends. The experiment later develops, and of course they find as the alcohol intake rises, the consequences go downhill.

It is quite playful and not without it's comic side; overall it's quite positive too. However, there is a dark side to this: the mid-life crisis state of the main characters, and the somewhat grim elements of alcohol. Broadly, the film is quite ambivalent about alcohol, and perhaps by extension Danish society, depicted as seesawing between sober tedium and binge-drinking fuelled mayhem.

Anyway, good stuff. But I'll stick to tea for my workday drink.