Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Crimson Peak

2015 period drama / horror movie about the daughter of a wealthy American businessman (Mia Wasikowska) marrying a mysterious british nobleman (Tom Hiddleston) and moving to his house in Northern England, finding out that both it and him seem to have their share of dark secrets. Crimson Peak was directed by Guillermo Del Toro, so it's not surprise it goes all in in its presentation of that gothic melodrama. Gorgeous architecture, gorgeous scenery, gorgeous costumes, you name it. In all honesty, this gorgeous presentation overshadows almost everything else about the movie, most notably its writing, which definitely gets the job done, it's not a bad story, but doesn't exactly reinvent the wheel. It's a by the book costume drama that goes some dark places, for sure, but I didn't feel any of them were unexpected or shocking enough to catch me off guard.

The performances are sure all very fun, Wasikowska, Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain, who plays his sister, really bring that theatric flair that a movie like this demands. The lavish production never overshadows them. Especially Chastain is going all in on her villain role, which was a delight to see. A lot of people will watch Crimson Peak expecting a horror movie but I'd hesitate to call it that. The is a cheeky meta gag early on where Wasikowska, who's an aspring author, describes her manuscript as "Not a ghost story, just a story with ghosts in it." which, of course, also describes the movie rather well. There are ghosts haunting the manor on Crimson Peak, and they do serve their purpose to the narrative, but it's not really about them. One might very well be tempted to watch Crimson Peak, expecting a more orthodox haunted house movie. Not really what it is, though. Del Toro has some fun with those supernatural flourishes, but Crimson Peak is a drama, not a horror movie and demands to be watched as one.

Crimson Peak is an enjoyable watch. Del Toro has surely made better movies in his career, but as a mildly spooky victorian period drama, direction and performances are absolutely on point. It indulges in melodrama and gothic horror tropes without ever getting to self aware of them, yet also without ever expecting them to do all the work. I watched it out of a random impulse after seeing it's on Netflix and I had a good time with it. It's the sort of thing doesn't really seem to a dedicated target audience, not scary enough for fans of horror movies, too gothic and heavy on fantasy elements for fans of period dramas, but for someone who feels like seeing something exactly inbetween, and is on board with all the theatrical camp it entails, it's a fun two hours.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

48 Hrs.

The original buddy cop movie, starring pre-mugshot Nick Nolte and SNL era Eddie Murphy. Nolte's a tough cop who paroles suave Murphy from prison for 48 hours so he can help catch a fugitive (James Remar, Ajax from The Warriors). It's a stock plot with stock characters (spurned girlfriend, angry black police captain) that rides on the lead duo's vitriolic chemistry though there's some period ickiness to the formula. Nolte keeps using racial slurs... He later apologizes for them and explains he was using then tactically, but still... Read in an interview why Eddie Murphy thinks it works. And Murphy's horniness felt a little too real and not that funny. A convict who hasn't had sex in 3 years is a good setup for a recurring gag, especially since he has so many hours to get laid, but since he comes across as pretty cool and not *that* frustrated it's not very funny.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Another 48 Hrs.

A movie as exciting as the title sounds. Nolte and Murphy pair again to hunt down a criminal associate of Murphy's but this time there's no 48 hour deadline (Murphy is fresh off prison) so the title is pointless and there isn't much in the way of narrative tension. I guess Nolte's being investigated by Internal Affairs and in danger of losing his badge, but catching The Iceman would prove nothing so it changes things how? Anyway, movie sticks to the same sleazy locations of bars and whorehouses, repeats the same rough setpieces and I think shoots itself in the foot by having a way more intricate plot and plot threads than it really needs.

 

[BrawlMan]

Another 48 Hrs.

A movie as exciting as the title sounds. Nolte and Murphy pair again to hunt down a criminal associate of Murphy's but this time there's no 48 hour deadline (Murphy is fresh off prison) so the title is pointless and there isn't much in the way of narrative tension. I guess Nolte's being investigated by Internal Affairs and in danger of losing his badge, but catching The Iceman would prove nothing so it changes things how? Anyway, movie sticks to the same sleazy locations of bars and whorehouses, repeats the same rough setpieces and I think shoots itself in the foot by having a way more intricate plot and plot threads than it really needs.

Nowhere near as good, less interesting, and feels like a half ass remake. I like 48 Hours (my parents being big Eddie Murphy fans love it even more), but even I admit it has some problems. It was the first of its kind, so I give it some good slack. Another 48 you could not get me to watch if you paid me, and is Walter Hill's 2nd worst film.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Nowhere near as good, less interesting, and feels like a half ass remake. I like 48 Hours (my parents being big Eddie Murphy fans love it even more), but even I admit it has some problems. It was the first of its kind, so I give it some good slack. Another 48 you could not get me to watch if you paid me, and is Walter Hill's 2nd worst film.

I like Murphy a lot but when he phones it in it's pretty shameless. But on the subject of beating dead horses, he brings in way more energy to Another 48 Hrs. than to Beverly Hills Cop III. And John Landis (who I like and even met!) couldn't direct Walter Hill's breakfast.

I enjoyed 48 Hrs. but I think Lethal Weapon 1-2 remain my favorite buddy cop movies. The Riggs/Murtaugh chemistry is much more fun, and both characters get to be funny instead of having only one of them exclusively bounce off the other.

 

[BrawlMan]

I like Murphy a lot but when he phones it in it's pretty shameless. But on the subject of beating dead horses, he brings in way more energy to Another 48 Hrs. than to Beverly Hills Cop III.

While true, that was not really much of a milestone by that point. There are bunch of action/buddy films better than BHC III.

I enjoyed 48 Hrs. but I think Lethal Weapon 1-2 remain my favorite buddy cop movies.

No arguement there. All of the Lethal Weapon films make all other buddy-cop movies look like shit in comparison. Many are shit of course, but there are plenty of good ones. Like I said before, I give 48 Hrs some leeway, but I am more than aware that there were many buddy movies that came out afterward with better quality. Hell, Big Trouble in Little China is a better buddy-movie than both 48 Hrs films. Though technically, Big Trouble is more of a group movie, but it's obvious Wang is the main hero and Jack Burton is the side kick. My favorite buddy films are Lethal Weapon, Rush Hour 1-2 (3 was okay, but I don't watch it that often), Showdown in Little Tokyo and Double Impact (Double the Van Dammage!).

 

[emanuela]

Rewatched Akira recently, and man the animation and visual direction is incredible. There's a real attention to space and setting here that most other films tend to gloss over or try to illustrate through exposition or more heavy-handed means. The soundtrack is amazing too, but it sucks that basically none of the characters are developed. But I hear that they're working on a series adaptation that spans the whole Manga; if they can recapture the animation quality that the film had, I'm sure it'll be great.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

One Night in Miami

A dramatization of a dramatization of a historical (but mostly unrecorded) meeting of the minds between Malcolm X, Cassius Clay, Jim Brown and Sam Cooke the night after Clay won the world championship. The year is 1964 and all four are at the top of their game, which becomes the setup for X trying to rouse them into using all that power for the good of social activism (and also joining the Nation of Islam, which Clay/Ali did the very next day).

It's a bit painfully obvious that this is first and foremost a play, and I gotta say it's kind of an ugly movie to look at - 90% of it takes place in a poorly lit, dumpy hotel room that is a little too obviously just a set. And per the laws of playwriting, characters walk in and out of scenes rather forcibly. And I'm not a massive fan of Malcolm X but at least I liked him as a character in the Spike Lee biopic; here he comes across as a blowhard and a spoilsport, belittling his friends and questioning their achievements on the very night they should be partying it up.

The movie sort of pitches Jim Brown as his polar opposite: irreligious, in it for the money, happy to trade his NFL stardom and become "the sacrificial black character" in Westerns and war movies. He also checks Malcolm X by arguing that black people can be as racist as white people. I think ultimately though the movie sides with X: his words at the end, his pained close-up, the firebombing of his house juxtaposed with business-as-usual Brown giving a press junket on the set of Dirty Dozen.

Clay and Cooke are kind of in the middle, and ultimately Cooke emerges as the best of both worlds. Didn't this guy die trying to rape a woman? Weird Regina King would make him the breakout hero of the four.

 

[Baffle]

The 2012 Dredd film. Rubbish.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The 2012 Dredd film. Rubbish.

Those could be considered fighin' words, but I kinda agree. The directing feels a tad weak, and I'm not a fan of the piss-yellow color filter.

 

[Thaluikhain]

The 2012 Dredd film. Rubbish.

Out of interest, why? I thought it was quite decent myself, but not a fan of the comics or anything.

 

[Baffle]

Out of interest, why? I thought it was quite decent myself, but not a fan of the comics or anything.

Dredd himself is just unbearable (though this is very in-character for him) -- the helmet looks ridiculous and the constant pursing of the lips is irritating. And he gets shot through a wall, through his back and out his front, and only stitches up the exit wound. You've got a big hole in your back, mate!

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Between Worlds

One of the most dreadful movies I've seen in a while. The gist of it: Nic Cage starts a relationship with a woman whose teen daughter (fresh off a coma) is possessed by the spirit of Cage's dead wife. The "daughter" starts fucking Cage behind "mom's" back and I dunno, I'm just grossed out by the icky, porny fanfic that barely passes for a plot. All the more offensive is that the movie pretends to ape Twin Peaks by ripping off Angelo Badalamenti's music (Badalamenti's credited for "Title Music", I suspect to avoid a lawsuit) and having the cast made up of Twin Peaks doppelgangers (just to triple the irony). So the daughter is a dead ringer for Laura Palmer, her bad boy bf is a dead ringer for Bobby Briggs, and the mother has that Sarah Palmer desperation written all over (even watches violent NatGeo programs). Oh and they use the Marilyn Manson cover of "I Put a Spell On You" just to crib from Lost Highway at one point.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Greenland
Our favourite disaster antagonist - the comet - returns. Except this time it's brought the family!
This isn't very original or inspiring or even high budget, however it does keep pace and tension rather well. Gerard Butler isn't someone who you look to for range or a clean-shaven face, though if you plonk him in the right place with sufficient orders, he can work rather well. At first I was pretty hesitant with the typical hokey 'rich white family' setup not invoking confidence, but it got the hooks in when the shit started flying, taking no time thankfully. I'm only writing this down now cause am certain there's not long before it's forgotten like one of Guy Pierce's scenes in Mememto.
Aside from that, a bit of an average budget and the odd shakey cam perhaps used to camoflage the former at times, it does the job effectively, regardless of how quickly you forget it ever existed.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Wonder Woman '84

Second solo Wonder Woman movie starring Gal Gadot, known from her breakout role as a tall, skinny lady with a weird accent in the Fast and Furious series, as the titular heroine. WW84 is set in... 1984 and revolves around Wondy trying to retrieve a wish granting McGuffin from Mandalorian's Pedro Pascal doing a Donald Trump impression. Also, Kristen Wiig turns into a cheetah woman at one point. It's not as sexy as it sounds. It's kinda sexy. But not as much as it sounds.

Seriously, WW84 is a very silly movie, going for that sense of super sincere cheese that all DCEU movies outside of Snyder's trilogy, which is officially its own thing at this point, seem to be going for. It sure is an alternative to Marvel's neverending dry snark, but not necessarily a preferable one. There is a degree to which I can get into silver age comic book cheese, but WW84 feels frequently like it was written for children and occasionally like it was written by children. It feels like an episode of a saturday morning superhero cartoon. And that's all well and good, but the damn thing is 2.5 hours long and there's just not much going on here.

It feels like a superhero movie written by an algorithm. [Hero] has to retrieve [object] that grants [power] from [villain] and [villains sidekick] to save the world from [cataclysmic event]. Neither the writing nor the presentation can successfully elevate this barebones premise. Villain Max Lord seems modelled on Donald Trump in a similar way the Snyder trilogies Lex Luthor seems modelled on Mark Zuckerberg, but where the razor sharp writing and Jesse Eisenberg's delightfully unhinged performance lent a sense of super villain charisma to what was the weasely, scheming type of antagonist rather than the threatening one, Pascal has the same energy as the real Trump. That of a snivelling rich cokehead who seems neither very smart, nor very competent.

The movie brings back Wondy's love interest from the first one. It is one of its better features, they have some actually decent chemistry. Wiig as secondary antagonist doesn't hold up nearly as well. I'm gonna have to assume that "frumpy, socially awkward blonde in glasses who turns into feline themed antihero" is an homage to Batman Returns because otherwise I'd have to call it a cheap ripoff.

WW84 is a 2.5 hour exercise in mediocrity. The closest thing to an identity has is its commitment to juvenile superhero tropes. Along with its period setting, it's most likely supposed to be a throwback but if I wanted to see a 80s Superman sequel... well, I don't. I'd be the first to support bringing camp back to superhero cinema but Wonder Woman 84 lacks the glamurous opulence and the sense of humour Joel Schumacher brought to his Batman movies that made them succesful love letters to the groundbreaking 60s television series. WW84 just feels tired and bland. It's the bare minimum of a superhero movie. If it were any more generic, it wouldn't exist.

 

[EscapeGoat]

Spent a bit of time catching up on Marvel movies I missed, so today I had a lazy day and watched both Spiderman Homecoming and Black Panther.

I was excited for Homecoming but in the end it felt like a bit of a dud. Cringe high school humour always falls flat for me, and while Tom Holland always seems to steal the show when he shows up in other films, here he struggled to carry it as the main lead. Keaton was excellent though.

Black Panther on the other hand was great. Super stylish and slick, plus easy to see why it holds a special place in the hearts of some folk given what it represents. Was tinged with sadness watching it though, knowing what happened to Chadwick Boseman.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I was excited for Homecoming but in the end it felt like a bit of a dud. Cringe high school humour always falls flat for me, and while Tom Holland always seems to steal the show when he shows up in other films, here he struggled to carry it as the main lead. Keaton was excellent though.

Yeah, also surprised at how little Zendaya Coleman is in that film, given all the blather about her being in it before it was released.

Also, that part where Parker is supposed to feel bad for spoiling an operation he didn't know about, and had no reason whatsoever that anyone remotely competent was interested in? Yeah, no.

 

[Gordon_4]

Wonder Woman '84

Second solo Wonder Woman movie starring Gal Gadot, known from her breakout role as a tall, skinny lady with a weird accent in the Fast and Furious series, as the titular heroine. WW84 is set in... 1984 and revolves around Wondy trying to retrieve a wish granting McGuffin from Mandalorian's Pedro Pascal doing a Donald Trump impression. Also, Kristen Wiig turns into a cheetah woman at one point. It's not as sexy as it sounds. It's kinda sexy. But not as much as it sounds.

Seriously, WW84 is a very silly movie, going for that sense of super sincere cheese that all DCEU movies outside of Snyder's trilogy, which is officially its own thing at this point, seem to be going for. It sure is an alternative to Marvel's neverending dry snark, but not necessarily a preferable one. There is a degree to which I can get into silver age comic book cheese, but WW84 feels frequently like it was written for children and occasionally like it was written by children. It feels like an episode of a saturday morning superhero cartoon. And that's all well and good, but the damn thing is 2.5 hours long and there's just not much going on here.

It feels like a superhero movie written by an algorithm. [Hero] has to retrieve [object] that grants [power] from [villain] and [villains sidekick] to save the world from [cataclysmic event]. Neither the writing nor the presentation can successfully elevate this barebones premise. Villain Max Lord seems modelled on Donald Trump in a similar way the Snyder trilogies Lex Luthor seems modelled on Mark Zuckerberg, but where the razor sharp writing and Jesse Eisenberg's delightfully unhinged performance lent a sense of super villain charisma to what was the weasely, scheming type of antagonist rather than the threatening one, Pascal has the same energy as the real Trump. That of a snivelling rich cokehead who seems neither very smart, nor very competent.

The movie brings back Wondy's love interest from the first one. It is one of its better features, they have some actually decent chemistry. Wiig as secondary antagonist doesn't hold up nearly as well. I'm gonna have to assume that "frumpy, socially awkward blonde in glasses who turns into feline themed antihero" is an homage to Batman Returns because otherwise I'd have to call it a cheap ripoff.

WW84 is a 2.5 hour exercise in mediocrity. The closest thing to an identity has is its commitment to juvenile superhero tropes. Along with its period setting, it's most likely supposed to be a throwback but if I wanted to see a 80s Superman sequel... well, I don't. I'd be the first to support bringing camp back to superhero cinema but Wonder Woman 84 lacks the glamurous opulence and the sense of humour Joel Schumacher brought to his Batman movies that made them succesful love letters to the groundbreaking 60s television series. WW84 just feels tired and bland. It's the bare minimum of a superhero movie. If it were any more generic, it wouldn't exist.

I’ll give you most of the critique, but in no universe is Pedro Pascal’s Maxwell Lord less engaging and charismatic than Jessie Eisenberg and his on screen assassination of Lex Luthor.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Victoria and Abdul: Great / Perfect

Film about late 19th-century Queen Victoria who, in her twilight years, befriends a lowly Indian servant named Abdul. At first, her family and colleagues take it with an eye-roll, but as she becomes more and more engrossed in Abdul and his culture, they start to see hers and Abdul's relationship as an indignity and a threat. Judi Dench plays the frail and obese Queen as only Judi Dench could, which is really amazing. That said, being the second movie about Indian servants' and their nigh unflappable loyalty that I've seen in the past month, I'm left morbidly curious about that culture.

 

[happyninja42]

I’ll give you most of the critique, but in no universe is Pedro Pascal’s Maxwell Lord less engaging and charismatic than Jessie Eisenberg and his on screen assassination of Lex Luthor.

I think it's only fair to say that it's not HIS assassination of Lex. I mean, someone wrote that shit for him to say, someone green lit that persona as well, as they thought it was working for the mood of the film. It's highly likely that Jessie didn't even like the portrayal, and maybe even spoke up about ways to change it, but was shot down, because he's just an actor. I vaguely recall hearing mention about Ben getting frustrated with the production, as he, a director/writer in his own right with considerable talent, apparently tried to do some tweaks with the story, etc, but was shot down. So, it's entirely possible Jessie was just, doing a job, as he was contractually obligated to do. With little to no input on how he was to portray the character. Which happens a lot more in the acting world than I think we realize.

In the fan-spheres, we often describe characters as if they are the brain child of the actor themselves, when it's more often the character is already fleshed out, and the actor is just, well...ACTING like the script instructs.