Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[gorfias]

To be fair to The Exorcist, while the whole "swearing demonically possessed child" thing seems old hat now, it was actually pretty revolutionary at the time to juxtapose the innocence of a child with a foul-mouthed, evil entity. It's not exactly a coincidence that both the film adaptation of The Exorcist and The Omen came out when they did.

I don't think I can think of another movie before this where people are just walking around the devil and treating it as the person just has a bad cold. Part of me would be like, "oh, you're cold and need a blanket, but possessed by the devil? Nice knowing you! Bye!"

Nope

On the one hand this is probably Peele's creepiest movie. On the other I never really got into it. I dunno. I would note and appreciate the weirdness, the precision, the creepiness, the visuals. But I never felt engaged with the story or the characters. I felt like they were going for Jaws but instead of working a fear for the sea it's the sky, which is fucking inescapable, and yet it never really got to me. Characters just want to take a picture of the monster, for one thing (who cares?). And the monster makes no sense. Horses can't outrun it, unless the protag is on one. It kills anything it stares at it, unless the protag stares at it. "Don't look at it" is all anybody should be doing, and that's easier than say Don't fall asleep or Freddy will get you, and yet they keep looking at it long after this becomes vox populi.


I'm also not sure if it was the attempts at comedy deflating the tension - every new Peele movie seems to be leaning a bit more on humor - or the grab bag of THEMES and MESSAGES that were vying for attention. I take this weird scifi horror western over say Scream 6 or Saw 9 but I dunno, wasn't completely sold.

Love this one. I can now appreciate all the ape stuff and the slow pace leading up to the 2nd half, but I've re-watched the 2nd half a dozen times. Very fun.
Exodus: Gods and Kings on HBO Max (2014)
D
Fun to look at. Some great sound. Looks big budget, great cast and directed by Ridley Scott.
Unfortunate for them that this came out same year as the far superior Noah by Darren Aronofskey but even without that competition, what was a terrific director like Scott doing to mess this up so badly?
The editing is terrible. I got lost at times in where we were and what was supposed to be happening and why.
Pacing is terrible, particularly in the 1st 1/2 and that isn't totally his fault. It makes something of a mystery out of who Moses really is (a Hebrew) and his discovery of who he really is. This is how the last 2 major tellings (last 3? I didn't see the B&W one) tell it too. My understanding is Moses et. al. always knew who he really was but he flees after commiting manslaughter on a guy beating a slave.

Spoiler

For some reason, they forgo this part of the story. Later, it is as if they want to tell this story as if g-d is just in Moses' imagination and that anything that looks like a miracle is just happenstance. If that was the goal, it sure made the entire parting of the sea pretty stupid looking, which it was anyway.

Ah me. Time I'll never get back :-(

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Love this one. I can now appreciate all the ape stuff and the slow pace leading up to the 2nd half, but I've re-watched the 2nd half a dozen times. Very fun.

I liked the first half more. It's a bit like Signs, I like saboring the portent and the despair and wrestle with what me or the characters are willing to believe better than watching the obvious stuff play out.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Renfield

Nicolas Cage has fun overacting as Dracula but has to share the movie with a boilerplate crime plot about cops vs goons in present New Orleans. Honestly he's not that much in it. Nicholas Hoult as Renfield gets superhero powers from munching on bugs before an action scene; Awkwafina as a traffic cop seems equally overpowered with no explanation why. They meet at the crux of a police investigation on the Lobo crime gang (helmed by Jean-Ralphio of all people) and I can't imagine anybody preferring this SNL nonsense over Nic Cage hamming it up as Dracula. The action isn't very good and the needle drops don't help but there's plenty of over the top gore. The dude next to me kept flinching so somebody out there thought it looked realistic.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Nope

On the one hand this is probably Peele's creepiest movie. On the other I never really got into it. I dunno. I would note and appreciate the weirdness, the precision, the creepiness, the visuals. But I never felt engaged with the story or the characters. I felt like they were going for Jaws but instead of working a fear for the sea it's the sky, which is fucking inescapable, and yet it never really got to me. Characters just want to take a picture of the monster, for one thing (who cares?). And the monster makes no sense. Horses can't outrun it, unless the protag is on one. It kills anything it stares at it, unless the protag stares at it. "Don't look at it" is all anybody should be doing, and that's easier than say Don't fall asleep or Freddy will get you, and yet they keep looking at it long after this becomes vox populi.


I'm also not sure if it was the attempts at comedy deflating the tension - every new Peele movie seems to be leaning a bit more on humor - or the grab bag of THEMES and MESSAGES that were vying for attention. I take this weird scifi horror western over say Scream 6 or Saw 9 but I dunno, wasn't completely sold.

I thought Nope was complete garbage and the only explanation I can come up with is that Peele bet someone he could make a shit movie and still get praised. I thought the initial buildup was solid but it built up to basically WTF thus the build up is basically a waste of time then.

 

[Baffle]

D&D: Honor Among Thieves. This film is extremely Dungeons and Dragons, and I really quite enjoyed it. Not too serious and better than LOTR. I really liked Chris Pine's coat.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I thought Nope was complete garbage and the only explanation I can come up with is that Peele bet someone he could make a shit movie and still get praised. I thought the initial buildup was solid but it built up to basically WTF thus the build up is basically a waste of time then.

It had its issues but still beats most of M. Night Shyamalan’s recent stuff. Haven’t seen Knock at the Cabin yet though.

 

[Hawki]

and better than LOTR.

 

[Casual Shinji]

better than LOTR.

 

[Baffle]

I get that LOTR is an epic and all that but it's not, like, fun. Real dearth of nice coats too, or at least ones I could realistically go to the shops in.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Been trying to watch The Snowman the last three nights, and haven’t even made it an hour in.

Out of curiosity, I looked it up -

The Snowman (2017) ⭐ 5.2 | Crime, Drama, Mystery

1h 59m | R

www.imdb.com

Just how TF is this the number one movie on Netflix right now? It’s one of the most vapid husks of a movie billed as a “crime drama thriller” that I’ve tried to watch. I think last chance will be tonight.

 

[Gordon_4]

The Super Mario Bros. Movie - 5/10

Oh Jesus Christ I know I’m going to get crucified for this. If it makes anyone feel better, my kids fuckin’ LOVED it. Total engagement from start to finish. I on the other hand was just kind of left cold for most of it. Also I have no idea why anyone is raving about that Peaches song, it’s bloody awful.

But the film has got several very noteworthy and excellent things in it:

-The overall ‘Mario World’ is the best fantasy world I have seen in the past decade that wasn’t Marvel or Star Wars and it’s better than most of those too. Spider-Verse is the only thing I foresee eating as an equal at that table.

-The way the set pieces at times feel like game levels being played - the Donkey Kong one and Rainbow Road in particular - is a superb blending of the two mediums.

-Bowser is a great villain with presence and feels like he’s dangerous and if no one has told me; Id never have picked Jack Black as the voice (at least every time he’s not obsessing over Peach).

-Toad; this little guy was cool. I don’t know if his personality as presented here is from like the Mario RPGs or something but whatever mad genius decided we needed Samwise Gamgee by way of Sir Diddimus in this movie was dead on the fucking money.

-The orchestral/symphonic arrangements of the old games music tracks was utterly amazing. I mean I liked the three needle drop tracks cos they’re all good songs but the movie isn’t using that kind of groove so they feel out of place. But if you had to have them, I can think of worse songs than the ones they chose.

 

[Xprimentyl]

The Super Mario Bros. Movie - 5/10

Oh Jesus Christ I know I’m going to get crucified for this. If it makes anyone feel better, my kids fuckin’ LOVED it.

As an adult with no interest in seeing this film, I'd just like to reiterate my sentiment that fellow adults with some form of entitled, nostalgic stake in this film continue to baffle me. Coming at it with some sort of "Siskel and Ebert"-level of critique because they remember Mario from the '80s and '90s is really unnecessary. Oh, they didn't pull down Charles Martinet to do Mario's voice like you remember? Aw, poor baby! Guess what? Your fucking KIDS have no idea who Charles Martinet is let alone do they care, and THEY are who this movie is for. Show me a child who leaves this film disappointed because Mario doesn't put on a caricature of Italian accent or because a giant lizard has an unnatural attraction to a human woman, and I'll buy tickets to see it myself, today, front row, and I'll take my notepad and pencil for notes for my 100-page dissertation on how Hollywood, in it's typical quest to bank on a popular IP, really "screwed the pooch" on this one.

 

[gorfias]

Been trying to watch The Snowman the last three nights, and haven’t even made it an hour in.

Out of curiosity, I looked it up -

The Snowman (2017) ⭐ 5.2 | Crime, Drama, Mystery

1h 59m | R

www.imdb.com

Just how TF is this the number one movie on Netflix right now? It’s one of the most vapid husks of a movie billed as a “crime drama thriller” that I’ve tried to watch. I think last chance will be tonight.

Made Jeremy's top 10 worst that year.

EDIT: Chris too:

 

[Bartholen]

Evil Dead Rise, 7/10

In a very rare occurrence, I decided to go see this movie on opening night after seeing the reviews. And I'm glad I did, it's very enjoyable if you've got the stomach for it. For those who've watched the 2013 Evil Dead remake, this addresses pretty much every issue I had with it.

1. In the remake I kept comparing it to the original no matter how hard I tried not to. Rise on the other hand is a completely new setting, setup, characters and dynamics, which allows it to stand on its own while remaining distinctly Evil Dead. If the 2013 remake is Demon's Souls, Rise is very much Dark Souls.
2. The remake had fairly little going for it in terms of setup beyond "Evil Dead again but played straight and gorier". Rise spends a surprisingly long time setting up characters, backstory and relationships, which lends it a lot more thematic weight and substance. It's not some in-depth examination of the human condition, but that pinch of relatability and real life grounding instantly makes it more engaging.
3. The remake, despite Raimi being a producer, wasn't nearly as visually distinct as the original. Rise has plenty of those classic Raimi-style camera movements and angles, giving it a lot more visual personality without feeling a carbon copy either.

Probably the best thing about this movie is how it never feels cheap, in multiple ways. There are basically no jumpscares, but it still retains a high level of intensity. The gore is juicy and plentiful, but never lurid or shoving your face in it, and cut away from fairly quickly. It achieves that visceral thrill of "OOOooh" without going to "eeeewww" like a Saw movie. The movie basically takes place almost entirely in a single apartment, but it never gets repetitive visually, and there's some excellent invoking of the uncanny valley with subtle CGI on top of excellent makeup and effects. The production values are on point. It's played 99,99% straight, but there's one very goofy Raimi-style gag that got a good laugh out of me.

What ended up surprising me about it is that it's actually possibly tamer than its 2013 predecessor in gore terms. While there's no shortage of satisfying splatter, there's nothing quite as stomach-churning as the needle or turkey carver bits from the 2013 film, and a lot of the action is partially obscured by shadows. This is by no means a negative, it's part of what gives Rise its visual identity, but those hoping for the new mainstream gore benchmark might be a tad underwhelmed.

It's not some masterpiece for the ages, but it's very good and succeeds at what it sets out to do. Go see it.

 

[Gordon_4]

As an adult with no interest in seeing this film, I'd just like to reiterate my sentiment that fellow adults with some form of entitled, nostalgic stake in this film continue to baffle me. Coming at it with some sort of "Siskel and Ebert"-level of critique because they remember Mario from the '80s and '90s is really unnecessary. Oh, they didn't pull down Charles Martinet to do Mario's voice like you remember? Aw, poor baby! Guess what? Your fucking KIDS have no idea who Charles Martinet is let alone do they care, and THEY are who this movie is for. Show me a child who leaves this film disappointed because Mario doesn't put on a caricature of Italian accent or because a giant lizard has an unnatural attraction to a human woman, and I'll buy tickets to see it myself, today, front row, and I'll take my notepad and pencil for notes for my 100-page dissertation on how Hollywood, in it's typical quest to bank on a popular IP, really "screwed the pooch" on this one.

I had no idea who Charles Martinet was until people began rending their hair and weeping that he wasn’t Mario. And as much as I was middle of the road on the movie, to consider it anything other than a roaring success on its three important fronts (“Dad, we want Mario games” was the post cinema refrain) would be hubris of the highest order. This movie worked its magic on exactly who it needed to.

 

[Bartholen]

Immortals, 4/10

This is a forgotten, and pretty forgettable, fantasy action movie set in a fantasy ancient Greece from 2011. Generic Hero #2815 (Henry Cavill) needs to stop Generic Bad Guy #8371 (Mickey Rourke) from enacting Generic Evil Plan #4174 (unleashing the Titans from Tartaros). I guess this was riding high on the trend set by Clash of the Titans, 300 and God of War at the time, because this feels like a mashup of all of those: stylized visuals from 300, fantasy elements from Clash, and gore from GoW.

It's very boring. Despite me calling it an action movie, most of it is spent in dull dialogues with tissue-thin characters on a completely generic fetch quest. The action, when it happens, is okay, there's some pretty decent fight choreography to be found. But it's too few and far between to warrant any kind of recommmendation for that. The acting ranges from passable to clearly phoned in, and there's not a single memorable performance to be found. Poor Henry Cavill is giving it his all despite what he's working with, but it doesn't save the movie. The dialogue is super basic and forgettable, and the characters have basically no personality beyond incredibly basic archetypes: the kind mentor, the snarling villain, the unlikely hero and so on.

The only things that make this movie stand out in any way are its visuals and hyperviolence. But even those are both mixed bags. The violence is very graphic for a movie of this type, but it's done a lot of the time with CG effects, reducing its impact and ending up looking like a video game. The visuals are actually pretty outstanding at times with garish costumes, a stylized color palette (lots of brown, black and gold) and stylish shots. But on the other hand it looks incredibly stagey and cheap a lot of the time. It looks like most of it was filmed on a tiny sound stage, which clashes super hard when it pans out to impossibly grand and obviously CG vistas, and the two visual components never gel naturally.

If I was 12 and the most hardcore fantasy action movie I was allowed to watch was Clash of the Titans, I guess I'd think this is super cool and hardcore because "woah blood". Thankfully I have better standards than that, and this movie is just hogwash.

 

[McElroy]

SMB movie
I am guilty. It was 50% off and I chose the version dubbed in Finnish on purpose so maybe not that guilty in the end. The dub is alright. They didn't bother to translate "power up", "darklands", and for some inexplicable reason there are a couple of catchphrases in English. Really messes up the metaphysics of it, like, it's dubbed so it means English sounds like Finnish, but Peach still says "here we go" ??? I'm not even kidding, I'd like they fined the distributor for this sort of shit. But Finns are too scared to hold our ground about it so whatever.

The movie's what you expect. Story written in an hour and the whole script in a couple of days. The kids in the theater liked DK best so clearly he should be Nintendo's mascot (except there will never be a Donkey Kong December ever again).

During the rapid hour and a half there are some moments that stand out a little bit - animation, music, the characters have their moments - in what is otherwise a lengthy commercial. 4/10

 

[BrawlMan]

Immortals, 4/10

This is a forgotten, and pretty forgettable, fantasy action movie set in a fantasy ancient Greece from 2011. Generic Hero #2815 (Henry Cavill) needs to stop Generic Bad Guy #8371 (Mickey Rourke) from enacting Generic Evil Plan #4174 (unleashing the Titans from Tartaros). I guess this was riding high on the trend set by Clash of the Titans, 300 and God of War at the time, because this feels like a mashup of all of those: stylized visuals from 300, fantasy elements from Clash, and gore from GoW.

It's very boring. Despite me calling it an action movie, most of it is spent in dull dialogues with tissue-thin characters on a completely generic fetch quest. The action, when it happens, is okay, there's some pretty decent fight choreography to be found. But it's too few and far between to warrant any kind of recommmendation for that. The acting ranges from passable to clearly phoned in, and there's not a single memorable performance to be found. Poor Henry Cavill is giving it his all despite what he's working with, but it doesn't save the movie. The dialogue is super basic and forgettable, and the characters have basically no personality beyond incredibly basic archetypes: the kind mentor, the snarling villain, the unlikely hero and so on.

The only things that make this movie stand out in any way are its visuals and hyperviolence. But even those are both mixed bags. The violence is very graphic for a movie of this type, but it's done a lot of the time with CG effects, reducing its impact and ending up looking like a video game. The visuals are actually pretty outstanding at times with garish costumes, a stylized color palette (lots of brown, black and gold) and stylish shots. But on the other hand it looks incredibly stagey and cheap a lot of the time. It looks like most of it was filmed on a tiny sound stage, which clashes super hard when it pans out to impossibly grand and obviously CG vistas, and the two visual components never gel naturally.

If I was 12 and the most hardcore fantasy action movie I was allowed to watch was Clash of the Titans, I guess I'd think this is super cool and hardcore because "woah blood". Thankfully I have better standards than that, and this movie is just hogwash.

I thought it was okay back in the day. I still think that now, but I don't watch it much anymore. The CG blood I actually don't mind, but it's not a stylized as the one that's done in Ninja Assassin. I would still take Immortals over the shaky cam and quick cut nonsense (Michael Bay and Jason Bourne clones) that was prevalent in a lot of action movies back in the late 2000s and through half of the 2010s. As much as I like Wrath of the Titans, even it suffered from shaky camitis when it came to the human on human(oid) action scenes. Clash of the Titans remake didn't suffer from this thankfully. Plus, it was just nice having an r-rated action movie. This was also the time when they tried to make everything PG-13, to appeal to the widest demographics. So a lot of action films have lost their bite at that time. Sure, better stuff came out the following year (most action movies that are straight to DVD ironically enough) and then a few years later with John Wick, but I still appreciate what they were trying to do. Not perfect, but a decent 6 out of 10 at least.

 

[Baffle]

Been trying to watch The Snowman the last three nights, and haven’t even made it an hour in.

Out of curiosity, I looked it up -

The Snowman (2017) ⭐ 5.2 | Crime, Drama, Mystery

1h 59m | R

www.imdb.com

Just how TF is this the number one movie on Netflix right now? It’s one of the most vapid husks of a movie billed as a “crime drama thriller” that I’ve tried to watch. I think last chance will be tonight.

I've read a few Harry Hole books and the source material is probably at least partly to blame.

 

[BrawlMan]

The Super Mario Bros. Movie - 5/10

Oh Jesus Christ I know I’m going to get crucified for this. If it makes anyone feel better, my kids fuckin’ LOVED it. Total engagement from start to finish. I on the other hand was just kind of left cold for most of it. Also I have no idea why anyone is raving about that Peaches song, it’s bloody awful.

But the film has got several very noteworthy and excellent things in it:

-The overall ‘Mario World’ is the best fantasy world I have seen in the past decade that wasn’t Marvel or Star Wars and it’s better than most of those too. Spider-Verse is the only thing I foresee eating as an equal at that table.

-The way the set pieces at times feel like game levels being played - the Donkey Kong one and Rainbow Road in particular - is a superb blending of the two mediums.

-Bowser is a great villain with presence and feels like he’s dangerous and if no one has told me; Id never have picked Jack Black as the voice (at least every time he’s not obsessing over Peach).

-Toad; this little guy was cool. I don’t know if his personality as presented here is from like the Mario RPGs or something but whatever mad genius decided we needed Samwise Gamgee by way of Sir Diddimus in this movie was dead on the fucking money.

-The orchestral/symphonic arrangements of the old games music tracks was utterly amazing. I mean I liked the three needle drop tracks cos they’re all good songs but the movie isn’t using that kind of groove so they feel out of place. But if you had to have them, I can think of worse songs than the ones they chose.

As an adult with no interest in seeing this film, I'd just like to reiterate my sentiment that fellow adults with some form of entitled, nostalgic stake in this film continue to baffle me. Coming at it with some sort of "Siskel and Ebert"-level of critique because they remember Mario from the '80s and '90s is really unnecessary. Oh, they didn't pull down Charles Martinet to do Mario's voice like you remember? Aw, poor baby! Guess what? Your fucking KIDS have no idea who Charles Martinet is let alone do they care, and THEY are who this movie is for. Show me a child who leaves this film disappointed because Mario doesn't put on a caricature of Italian accent or because a giant lizard has an unnatural attraction to a human woman, and I'll buy tickets to see it myself, today, front row, and I'll take my notepad and pencil for notes for my 100-page dissertation on how Hollywood, in it's typical quest to bank on a popular IP, really "screwed the pooch" on this one.

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