Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[Old_Hunter_77]

A couple of documentaries. I'm not gonna rate them because they're dealing with some heavy stuff:

The Black Box Diaries
Documents a high profile rape case in Japan from the perspective of the victim, herself a journalist. Naturally gets into the antiquated laws and politics and culture around sexual violence, which was the most interesting part for me.

Sugarland
Investigating a boarding school for native people in Canada where of course the kids were abused and killed. I remember following this in the new a few years ago when they found a bunch of previously hidden graves. It's a tough one to watch both because of the subject matter but also it's very slow paced as the survivors are old but- at the risk of sounding preach- everyone needs to know about this stuff.

Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
I really don't know what to think about this. The subject matter is fascinating to me- it basically is a social studies lesson about the political history of post-colonial Africa; how 16 countries entered the U.N., the awkward and exploitive transition to independence, the crazy Cold War crap everyone was up to.
The presentation is right up my alley, and I've seen this sort of musical collage approach like in The Blackpower Mixtape, where there's no narrator instead it's a lot of music, intercutting culture with politics and text on the screen to glue the narrative together.
And the soundtrack here is my favorite music- jazz (and jazz adjacent). Dizzy Gillespie, Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong, Miriam Makeba, et al, tons of glorious footage and performances, culminating in Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln's direct involvement in the politics. These are my gods and I'm elated when I see/hear them. So much so that I forget I'm watching a serious political documentary. Sometimes it's hard to follow what was going on with all the politicking when in my heart I'd rather have heard the end of Dizzy's solo. Especially at 2.5 hours I had to watch this in a couple sessions.
It's certainly a vibe though so I do recommend it but take notes and read about some of these people later on your own, it's... a lot.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

The Girl With the Needle, 8/10

Denmark's foreign film Oscar contender is exactly my kind of b.s.- black and white moody northern european murder stuff.
Inspired by the true story of post-WW1 era baby killer, the needle in the title refers to a woman trying to abort herself so that tells you what you're in for. War trauma, patriarchy, creepy mother/daughter dynamics, poverty... you know, all the fun stuff. Great movie.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Ghosted (Apple TV+)

Third and final collaboration between Chris Evans and Ana de Armas. The plot is quite meta - they're actors who've been coerced into heading a lazy action comedy cash grab for a streaming service, with the catch being that they have about as much chemistry together as Selena Gomez and the Spanish language. For a first date their characters sprint up the stairs from The Exorcist in slow motion to the Queen of Funk's "Like Sugar". After doing it like they do on the Discovery Channel, a horny Evans stalks his one night stand to London, and discovers Ana is a spy in a slit dress not dissimilar from all the other spies in slit dresses she's played. He's also somehow smuggled a cactus through customs, which must've been a nightmare.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★★ review of Final Destination 2 (2003)

“I control my life, all right? Not some crazy list that Death has put together.” “I’ll be sure to carve that onto your tombstone.” This film had a bit of a tumultuous production, partially due to the fact that when the film was given the go-ahead, most of the crew that made the first movie was...

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[Old_Hunter_77]

The Seed of the Sacred Fig, 10/10

Germany's contribution to the Best Foreign Film for the Academy this year is actually Iranian because the filmmaker had to literally gtfo and sneak into Germany to avoid goin to freaking jail for this movie. So now I hope you're guilted into watching this movie that is just really great even if it wouldn't have this backstory.

It's about a man who works as part of Iran's theocratic regime right as the protests and crackdown went down a few years ago when women were protesting en masse against the "moral" police suppression and dress codes. As his morality and dignity crumbles under his sense of duty and moral cowardice, he turns against his own wife and daughters.

I was afraid of it being lecture-like and preachy as these things can be but it's brilliantly character focused and does a wonderful job of showing how a f'd up system encourages people to slowly push away their own humanity.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★ review of Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin (1997)

“You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” There isn't a lot to note about this film on a production level, although there are a couple of notes I have. Firstly, this was the last vocal appearance by Paul Winchell as Tigger in an official Winnie the...

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[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★ review of City of the Living Dead (1980)

“No, the problem is in your mind. You just can’t accept the truth.” This film had a fairly turbulent production. After Zombi 2, Lucio Fulci had an idea for a story with Lovecraftian elements. However, after the script was written by Dardano Sachetti, the script was shelved for a bit due to...

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[Old_Hunter_77]

Challengers, 6/10

6/10 isn't a bad rating from me fwiw, just a hip-shot number. I don't follow the "anything below 7 sucks" mentality that gaming outlets use....

Anyway, this is the "tennis sex" movie with Zendaya, as it was described to me by the internet. Two tennis buddies meet this super hot awesome tennis chick (they keep telling us how super hot awesome she is) and the movie is about their lives throughout the course of their late-teens into early 30s- their careers, their friendships, their romantic relationships, and the practically non-existent borders between the two.

The best thing about the movie is that it treats all this as subtlety as a fast served tennis ball smacking you in the nuts, so if you're down for a light-drama romp this will do it. Much of the positive reception was due to the supposed sexiness but frankly I found it all quite silly. Part of it is just how sanitary it all is actually- I mean you could watch this w/ your mom lol. I'm not saying I need pr0n but it just so didn't match the commentary about the movie I read.

Once I embraced my own impression- that these aren't three sexpots being sexy, these are three immature morons- I had fun with it. Of course if you like tennis you'll like it more which is to be expected (personally I don't normally give a shit about tennis) because there is a lot of close up, dramatic and even first person tennis. But I do like movies that go all-in on their niche interest- I mean I love basketball movies because I like basketball, you know?

There is a stylized use of soundtrack that at first feels cool but then wears thin, as does the movie as a whole perhaps because it's over 2 hours and that loses a lot of points for me. There are a LOT of slow-mo drama shots that really could have been edited I'm guessing. I dunno I just feel like a story about three cute sexy tennis morons could have been like 90 minutes.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★★ review of Speed (1994)

"Pop quiz, hotshot." This film's production wasn't overly troubled, but to call it smooth would be a lie. Written by Graham Yost after his father described a movie called Runaway Train that his father mistakenly believed involved a bomb on a train, Graham thought a bomb on a bus would be much...

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[Old_Hunter_77]

Sing Sing, 6/10

It's really hard to "rate" this film because it's the kind of movie where you know exactly what you're getting at with the trailers and it delivers exactly what it promises well. And you have to have a real heart of stone, deep cynicism against the idea of real-life character growth or redemption, or racism/classism to not be moved by the fundamental narrative here.
It's about a theater program for prisoners in the titular prison. This is a real program and most of the cast were members of that program. At the center are two guys- one played by a regular actor and one by one of the actual program members- navigating their prison time with theater as a vehicle for growth and adapting to healthy relationships with themselves and other people.

Of course the performances are touching and the scenes of these dudes doing their rehearsals and exercises are charming.
However, seemingly in the service of a responsible run time or the desire to never let the viewer lose focus of the redemptive nature of art and reform, any conflict is very quickly resolved by them saying the direct thing. It felt like the movie was walking on glass.

I think it's worth watching for fans of acting, because you get one pro who nails it (he is nominated for an Oscar) and a cast of unique amateurs reflecting a (probably sanitized) version of their life experiences.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★ review of My Bloody Valentine (1981)

“Roses are red, violets are blue. One is dead, and so are you.” This film had a few hiccups in production, unsurprising for a low-budget eighties slasher. The biggest one was when the film crew arrived at the mine they were planning to film at because of its dreary and dusty look...only for the...

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[Johnny Novgorod]

The Jesus Rolls

Remake of some perverted French movie from the 1970s, starring Big Lebowski's Jesus Quintana for no particular reason. The irony is that the original French movie ends with a minor getting "deflowered", but here Jesus' signature pederasty ("Eight year olds, dude") is retconned as a big, unfunny misunderstanding. What follows is 80 something minutes of Turturro and Bobby Cannoli affecting Puerto Rican accents, playing GTA and trying to make Audrey Tatou orgasm. Made with the Coens' blessing but not their talent.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep on Netflix.

Fucking love Doug Cockle voicing Geralt here. The live action actor of Jaskier is great as well.

But wow this fucking sucked. As an animation, you can tell there is some talent behind the scenes. But that talent is worthless when the art style is so bland and the CGI so egregious.

The story is supposed to be a Witcher take on the Little Mermaid, but feels like it was written by AI. Seriously. A human prince and a mermaid princess are in love, but it's revealed that THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW EACH OTHER'S LANGUAGE. The books or the games would ridicule them mercilessly for this, but not a single comment is made.

Easy pass. Netflix can't stop running this franchise into the ground.

 

[Agema]

Pearl (2022)

Part 2 of the X film trilogy from Ti West and Mia Goth. It's a prequel to the initial instalment, "X".

Pearl lives on a farm somewhere in rural Texas with her strict, German mother and disabled father, whilst her husband Howard is away at war and a 'flu epidemic rages. She is stuck between trying to keep the farm going and caring for her father, whilst occasionally sneaking some time out to go to the cinema when she needs to go to town. Pearl is lonely, browbeaten, sexually frustrated, and dreams of escaping to fame and glory like she sees in the movies. However, it will rapidly become clear that Pearl is definitely a bit on the insane spectrum. And, you know, this is a horror film, so I don't think I'm giving anything away to say that things are going to end badly and messily for a lot of people.

It is a sort of comedy horror; not necessarily totally laugh out loud, but it clearly has a comic edge, styled on (and satirising) early 20th century movies like Disney, Wizard of Oz, etc. West and Goth crank the dial up on cartoonish fun alongside the body count, and that's plenty to put it into the territory of good fun. It's not a great movie, but it's got plenty of character and is entertaining.

 

[Bartholen]

The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep on Netflix.

Fucking love Doug Cockle voicing Geralt here. The live action actor of Jaskier is great as well.

But wow this fucking sucked. As an animation, you can tell there is some talent behind the scenes. But that talent is worthless when the art style is so bland and the CGI so egregious.

The story is supposed to be a Witcher take on the Little Mermaid, but feels like it was written by AI. Seriously. A human prince and a mermaid princess are in love, but it's revealed that THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW EACH OTHER'S LANGUAGE. The books or the games would ridicule them mercilessly for this, but not a single comment is made.

Easy pass. Netflix can't stop running this franchise into the ground.

Man, never have my hopes been raised so high and then so brutally dashed with so few sentences. What a shame.

Excalibur (1981), 7/10

This is John Boorman's (of Deliverance and Zardoz fame) adaptation of the myth of King Arthur. It's a 2+ hour long, operatic, mythological and violent epic that apparently tells the story the most faithfully out of any King Arthur movies, so you know the plot. It's perhaps best known for its purposely over the top visual style, which can be best described as "fairytale on steroids": suits of armor glean impossibly brightly, the colors are ridiculously bold, and the location design resembles straight up science fiction a lot of the time. If you've seen one of those umpteen million "X as an 80s dark fantasy movie" AI videos, this is pretty much what they're trying to replicate visually. It's also massively influential to Zack the Hack Snyder, which is why I was curious about it.

I quite enjoyed it. It's got some serious issues, but the visuals is what the movie's really all about, and on that front it delivers by the bucketload. It might be one of the most gorgeous movies I've ever seen. There are so many shots that are basically paintings in motion, the stylized visuals are incredibly distinct and colourful, and sans Merlin's ridiculously distracting - and just plain ridiculous - metal hat, the weird amalgamation of medieval accuracy, high fantasy and trippy sci-fi influences somehow form a coherent, beautiful whole. Boorman was originally intent on directing an adaptation of Lord of the Rings, and that would have at least looked incredible based on this.

The storytelling is deliberately mythological and operatic, meaning that the movie's more about a vibe than a plot. That's a nice way of saying that this movie's structure is kind of all over the place. Past the initial steps of Arthur getting Excalibur and becoming king the movie just kind of goes through several plots without them really affecting one another that much. There isn't really a core focus or throughline, which can make the movie feel rather meandering. The characters are nothing to write home about either: there's not a lot of character growth or arcs to be found, the characters are more like archetypes or ideas rather than three-dimensional people. But on the other hand once you settle in for this being more of a mood piece, that kind of falls to the wayside and you can just enjoy the pretty pictures. This movie is also surprisingly stacked with its cast: Liam Neeson, Helen Mirren, Patrick Stewart, Ciaran Hinds and Gabriel Byrne all understand what kind of movie they're in, and commit to the over the top grandiosity properly. The odd man out here is the actor of Merlin, whose performance slips into Tim the Enchanter territory far too often, and when it happens the out of place humor is incredibly jarring.

As a final note, the fact that Snyder loves this movie further solidifies my opinion that he's a moron who's managed to fail upwards. He loves this movie because "it's not a movie for kids", ie. he likes the blood and tits. Apparently missing every actually interesting thing about it: the visual stylization, the way the actors sell this incredibly overcooked stuff, and the mythological grandiosity. Making this kind of thing work is no easy task, which is probably why this kind of stuff hasn't been made in ages.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★ review of The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

“Secrets have a cost, they aren’t for free. Not now, not ever.” This film had a bit of a storied production. The planned follow-up from Spider-Man 3 fizzled out when Sam Raimi dropped out of production, feeling unable to deliver a script to his standard in the time frame given. Wanting to avoid...

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[Thaluikhain]

A ★★ review of The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

“Secrets have a cost, they aren’t for free. Not now, not ever.” This film had a bit of a storied production. The planned follow-up from Spider-Man 3 fizzled out when Sam Raimi dropped out of production, feeling unable to deliver a script to his standard in the time frame given. Wanting to avoid...

letterboxd.com

Yeah, I think it's best to view this (and the sequel) as a teen romantic comedy starring Garfield and Stone, which gets interrupted every so often by some superhero stuff turning up.

 

[thebobmaster]

Yeah, I think it's best to view this (and the sequel) as a teen romantic comedy starring Garfield and Stone, which gets interrupted every so often by some superhero stuff turning up.

Honestly, their chemistry was basically the saving grace of that movie.

 

[Gordon_4]

Captain America: Brave New World - 8/10

I liked it; I was entertained and aside from one actually plot central reference it concerns itself with just being a Captain America movie.

I await all accusations of being a paid shill and/or apologist for: American Imperialism, Disney, China (if only for their conspicuous absence), or Israel and will direct them to the nearest appropriate abyss.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Watched Captain America 4 as well. It's definitely not a disaster like everyone was claiming it would be, and I think that's mainly due to the cast. Sam is great, new Falcon is great, and Isaiah Bradley was probably the best part of this movie.

At the same time, this doesn't even come close to the original Cap trilogy. Currently I'm not really sure what makes Sam Wilson Captain America. But the movie was enjoyable enough that I'm willing to wait and see what they do with him.

Seriously though Marvel... the VFX, they're as horrible as ever. What was supposed to be the most important scene in the movie genuinely looked like unfinished footage from that leaked cut of X-Men Origins Wolverine.