Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[Xprimentyl]

Bliss: Um, what? / Reason

I can’t really explain the movie without ruining it… I can’t really explain the movie at ALL, if I'm being honest.

Owen Wilson plays a man stuck in a corporate rut who’s constantly fantasizing about his oceanside dream home and clearly suffering from a recent divorce and the resultant strained relationships with his children. After an… “altercation” with his boss, he meets Salma Hayek, a transient mystic who claims that Wilson is “real” as he is not affected by her powers. With nowhere to go, Wilson agrees to shack up with her in her shanty abode under a nearby bridge. A romance is formed, “apparent” truths are revealed, some things that aren’t explained happen, then it ends leaving a lot of questions.

All in all, the premise was actually fairly good (if a bit re-hashy as there’ve been several, more well-done films with a similar premise,) but the execution sucked HARD. I’m on board when your film ask me “just go with it,” but sometimes, you can go too far; some things you just HAVE to explain for the sake of a cohesive narrative. This movies just says “nope, we’re moving on. The End.” It starts off well enough, but about a third-to-midway through, it's like they hit the gas, like they were up against time constraints and had to fit "the rest" in where they could. It was like a site-seeing tour where the guide is driving at 90 miles per hour and pointing over his shoulder the whole time because he's passed everything interesting. I'd say watch it out of morbid curiosity if nothing else.

 

[happyninja42]

Watching the Kong vs Godzilla movie this weekend.
Preemptive reaction:
Nobody wins because whoever's making this doesn't want to alienate one fandom over the other. See BvS, Avungers 3, etc.
Kong gets a shot. Godzilla gets one. Maybe one of them appears to win over the other. And then they team up against an inoffensive expendable third wheel/boring human bad.

There is NEVER a winner when a book/film/tv show pits two heroic characters against each other. It's just fanwankery to drive up hype. Has been for years. The only real metric you can use, to determine who will, if anything, emerge victorious in spirit, in such a pairing off, is who is the main character of the film. Like how Thor really beat Hulk, because you know, the movie wasn't called HULK: Ragnarok.

One slight correction to your prediction though, is that it won't be a human bad they team up against, it will be whatever the actual evil monster is. Possibly BUILT by the human bad sure, Mech-InsertMonsterNameHere is a time honored trope of the Godzilla franchise after all. And there is a LOT of speculation, based on bits in the trailer, that a Mecha-Zilla is actually behind things.

My personal theory, is that Godzilla will win, and beat down Kong, thus giving us the "Oh no! All is lost, because the hero monster of this film is about to die! What's that rumbling?" Camera pans over, to show another Godzilla rising up out of the waters, giving the fight the stinkeye, and then proceeds to attack the other Godzilla, after a few punches/tail thwaps are thrown, it's revealed *Gasp!* "The godzilla that's been rampaging and almost killed Kong isn't the real godzilla! It's a robot!!" Then Real-Zilla will team up with Kong, they will stomp Mecha-Zilla, and then bro-fistbump as they stand, united and victorious, over the True Monster. Then stomp off into the distance.

Or, if it really is Real-Zilla, it will be because he's being driven insane with that sonic technology they already clearly established, and they will stop that, and free him from his mental anguish.

My money is still on Option 1 though, given some of the things I've seen, breakdown videos of the trailer and stuff. It just feels more likely, given the current material presented. Though it wouldn't surprise me if that sonic technology is utilized in some capacity as well as Mecha-Zilla.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

There is NEVER a winner when a book/film/tv show pits two heroic characters against each other. It's just fanwankery to drive up hype. Has been for years. The only real metric you can use, to determine who will, if anything, emerge victorious in spirit, in such a pairing off, is who is the main character of the film. Like how Thor really beat Hulk, because you know, the movie wasn't called HULK: Ragnarok.

One slight correction to your prediction though, is that it won't be a human bad they team up against, it will be whatever the actual evil monster is. Possibly BUILT by the human bad sure, Mech-InsertMonsterNameHere is a time honored trope of the Godzilla franchise after all. And there is a LOT of speculation, based on bits in the trailer, that a Mecha-Zilla is actually behind things.

My personal theory, is that Godzilla will win, and beat down Kong, thus giving us the "Oh no! All is lost, because the hero monster of this film is about to die! What's that rumbling?" Camera pans over, to show another Godzilla rising up out of the waters, giving the fight the stinkeye, and then proceeds to attack the other Godzilla, after a few punches/tail thwaps are thrown, it's revealed *Gasp!* "The godzilla that's been rampaging and almost killed Kong isn't the real godzilla! It's a robot!!" Then Real-Zilla will team up with Kong, they will stomp Mecha-Zilla, and then bro-fistbump as they stand, united and victorious, over the True Monster. Then stomp off into the distance.

Or, if it really is Real-Zilla, it will be because he's being driven insane with that sonic technology they already clearly established, and they will stop that, and free him from his mental anguish.

My money is still on Option 1 though, given some of the things I've seen, breakdown videos of the trailer and stuff. It just feels more likely, given the current material presented. Though it wouldn't surprise me if that sonic technology is utilized in some capacity as well as Mecha-Zilla.

Well, in MCU fashion, a battle can have a winner by technicism (like Thor 3) but my point is how pointless the fights always end up being. Thor wins in Thor 3. So what? Back to the cage they go.

Either Kong or Godzilla dies, or appears to die, only to get resurrected and fight against the actual villain. Maybe one of them actually dies at the end but then we get the reveal of eggs or more monkeys, setting up a Netflix spin-off or some shit.

 

[happyninja42]

Well, in MCU fashion, a battle can have a winner by technicism (like Thor 3) but my point is how pointless the fights always end up being. Thor wins in Thor 3. So what? Back to the cage they go.

Either Kong or Godzilla dies, or appears to die, only to get resurrected and fight against the actual villain. Maybe one of them actually dies at the end but then we get the reveal of eggs or more monkeys, setting up a Netflix spin-off or some shit.

Oh I agree with the idea that making heroes fight each other is contrived, and always ends the same way. It's not unique to comics though, it's just fanboy pissing contests about "which one is stronger", that is ultimately pointless.

Regarding Kong/Zilla, I don't think either of them will die in this film. I genuinely think, given how many times they've hammered home the idea that Zilla shouldn't be acting this way, but also hyping up Kong as a champion of humanity (just like Zilla), that it's going to be a draw, or one wins, but it's not a death blow. That BEFORE the deathblow, they will suddenly reveal the Big Bad, and dust each other off, and do a tagteam assault as round 3. Because then you can branch off the franchise in 2 directions, with the 2 heroes, going forward. That feels more like what they would do, from a marketing standpoint.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

As this isn't a TV show but a full feature I'll drop this here.
Max Original on HBO Max: Persona: The Dark Truth Behind Personality Tests.
What may seem like a fun lark at testing one's personality is being used in an insidious manner. Big businesses are using this to marginalize people. Eye opening and worth a watch.

It took me way too long to realise that wasn't a cute spinoff about the videogame and that "persona" is a real word outside of it.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Didn't really watch it, more of glance at for a few seconds while my sisters watched, but X-men Apocalypse. Wow. Say what you want about the DCEU or the MCU, I don't think anyone can argue that the last few X-men films were just complete garbage. Terrible acting and casting, dumbass plot, shit villains, laughable special effects, etc. Like they combined all the worst parts of the DCEU and MCU together. The family intends to watch Logan tonight to wash the bad taste out of our mouths.

 

[Thaluikhain]

You know how films about Robin Hood are legally required to be awful, and that the Kevin Costner Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves movie is the exception to that?

It turns out that the second part of that sentence is wrong. Long and slow and cringeable. Maybe Alan Rickman would have worked in a totally different film, but he was acting like he's in a bad pantomime and everyone else was acting as if they were in a serious film with the odd funny bit, just failing utterly at everything. Morgan Freeman, Brian Blessed, Alan Rickman, Sean Connery and Kevin Costner make a film together and it's just bad.

Didn't really watch it, more of glance at for a few seconds while my sisters watched, but X-men Apocalypse. Wow. Say what you want about the DCEU or the MCU, I don't think anyone can argue that the last few X-men films were just complete garbage. Terrible acting and casting, dumbass plot, shit villains, laughable special effects, etc. Like they combined all the worst parts of the DCEU and MCU together. The family intends to watch Logan tonight to wash the bad taste out of our mouths.

I didn't think the special effects were bad as such, they were just ill used by people who had no idea what they were doing.

But yeah, X-Men Apocalypse exists solely to annoy hardworking filmmakers who produce much better stuff on a shoestring budget.

 

[Gordon_4]

You know how films about Robin Hood are legally required to be awful

Errol Flynn headlined "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and it is a fucking classic, and Men in Tights is the send up dreams are made of. And I'll take Prince of Thieves over that self serious bullshit with Russel Crowe or that weird Call of Duty medieval mode knockoff wearing Robin Hood's skin that Taron Eggerton made any day of the week.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Errol Flynn headlined "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and it is a fucking classic,

Well, the law hadn't been passed back then, it's not that I forgot about Errol Flynn. Also doesn't apply to the Richard Greene tv series from waaaaay back, which was watchable.

And I'll take Prince of Thieves over that self serious bullshit with Russel Crowe or that weird Call of Duty medieval mode knockoff wearing Robin Hood's skin that Taron Eggerton made any day of the week.

Certainly, yes. Though, for the latter I'm only going off what others have told me, but saw the former and...the hell were they thinking?

 

[Xprimentyl]

7500: Turbulence / Fasten Your Seatbelts

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as an American pilot living in Germany, it kicks off during pre-flight checks as passengers are boarding for a flight Paris. Shortly after takeoff, a handful of terrorists attempt to rush the cockpit, and the rest is about the pilots struggling with the directive that in such situations, no matter what, you DON’T open the door to the cockpit.

This movie probably won’t be for everyone, but I personally found it pretty damned good. I appreciate when a film tries to do something even a little different, and what this one does is, rather than being a trope-filled “terrorists on a plane with heroes plotting to take the plane back,” it attempts to capture a singular moment, a singular event, and just shows you what happens from the perspective of one man. Most of the film is shot in the cockpit, and there’s absolutely NO score/music. I made it about halfway in before I realized not one orchestral brass stab or whining string section had cued me for an emotional reaction, so the film has this intensity ramped up by a deafening silence surrounding the performances of the actors (which are amazing, btw.) *I* recommend it; it’s worth the watch by anyone, but as I said, I don’t expect everyone to appreciate it as I did.



The Handmaiden: O_O / Yeah, that just happened.

This story takes place in 1930s-ish, Japanese-occupied Korea. It’s about a young, female pickpocket and con man who come up with an elaborate plan to dupe a Japanese woman and her pervy weeb uncle/husband-to-be out of their (well, HER) inheritance.

Have you ever gone into a film with no real tangible knowledge or expectations of it, but have a least a general clue as to the gist based largely on assumption, then the film starts off meeting those assumptions and you ease into that “yeah, I figured as much,” then, as you’re rustling around in your bag of popcorn, you look up, and the film has turned into softcore porn bordering on just regular porn? I hadn’t, but I have now. What starts out as what I thought was going to be a light-hearted, whimsical drama quickly turned into a twisted tale of betrayal, abuse and murder (and cunalingus and fingering and scissoring and some weird, silver bells that go up the lady bits.) It was actually a good movie; it just… Ok, I’m not a prude; I don’t mind a sex scene when done tastefully, and I’m not saying these were necessarily tasteless, but they over stay their welcome, IMHO. I mean, once we’ve established “they’re having sex,” why do we need to watch them awkwardly change position and continue for another 2-3 minutes? It adds nothing to the film except that awkward silence as couples avoid eye contact and those who brought their children are telling them to close their eyes and cover their ears. But save for that personal gripe, it was a good movie.



I See You: Really Good / Great

A story about a suburban family going through suburban struggles: the wife (Helen Hunt) had an affair she’s desperately trying to move her family past; the husband (Jon Tenney) harbors resentment, but puts on the badge everyday and goes to work as a detective; their teenaged son is teenaged angry, mostly at his mom for “ruining the family.” With the stage set, a local child goes missing, and the husband is sucked into the investigation they believe to be either a continuation or copycat of a case closed 15 years prior. Strange things start happening around the house, i.e.: items missing, photos out of their frames, TVs coming on unsolicited, etc. Aaaaaand…. Go watch it.

I initially thought the film was stumbling around with some awkward story-telling choices, but how it came together in the end really sealed the deal for me; I recommend it. However, without spoiling anything, this is yet another film that suffers from “once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it,” and a re-watch isn’t merited unless it’s with someone else who hasn’t seen it, so you can enjoy it again vicariously through them.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

So the oscar nomination list is out. Did anyone watch a single one of those movies this year?

No?

Yeah didn't think so.

 

[Agema]

Aquaman (2018)

Apparently this movie made over $1 billion at the box office. How?

This is a children's movie. There are lots of good children's movies, of course, but I mean to say this in a pejorative sense that this is a movie best suited to a bunch of people with stunted aesthetic appreciation, who don't require any real meaning, narrative cohesion, character, etc. in a film. It's a load of flashy, glowy bright colours amidst fight scenes with some shockingly poor CGI and then it ends. Aquaman does something and there's a fight. And then he pitches up somewhere else and there's a fight. And then in a new place, another fight. And then he suddenly has to go into some sort of undersea lightning vortex, meet <spoiler> get <spoiler> and fight an end of game baddie. Some of the plot holes are appalling. We're rushed through a load of characters we don't really get to know or care about. I feel sorry for Jason Momoa. He's a charismatic actor (and by all accounts extremely nice person), surely he could be given something better to work with. The script is lazy, cliched, full of uninspiring interplay and regulation quips to show off that they're cool, and then it ends.

But there is an underlying promise to it. An Aquaman 2 could be quite good, now they've got all the immensely tedious exposition and worldbuilding out of the way, and hire someone with an interest in something more than flashing lights and punching people through walls.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

So the oscar nomination list is out. Did anyone watch a single one of those movies this year?

No?

Yeah didn't think so.

From Best Picture nominees I saw Sound of Thunder, Chicago 7 and Mank. I don't consider any of them to be BEST MOVIE OF 2020. Sound of Thunder is pretty good though.

 

[Agema]

So the oscar nomination list is out. Did anyone watch a single one of those movies this year?

"My Octopus Teacher" and "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm".

 

[Piscian]

I watched Come True (2020) tonight. It's a sci-fi horror film about a high-schooler suffering from night terrors who enters into a sleep study to hopefully help or at least understand what's happening to her. I have a sort of affinity for this stuff because I've suffered from regular intense ultra-lucid dreams and night terrors my whole life so I really connected with the otherworldly imagery and what's she's going through. While wouldn't describe the film as a slow burn, there's no jump scares or anything. There's a gradual climb of tension as things spiral more and more out of control. I definitely got pretty uncomfortable watching it alone with the score which is pretty amazing. I have to loosely describe myself as a horror fan, because I only really watch more genre pushing films where the horror is in the surreal or unknown. I like horror films where life is perfectly normal, but somethings...not quite right. The movie ends on a note where I can't compare it to anything or it'll give it away. Suffice to say I think if David Bowie were still around he'd like it. I just noticed it got while a lot of accolades on Rottentomatoes where it's close to 90%. I wouldn't quite put it so high I had mixed feelings about the ending and would put myself closer to like 7.5/10. The journey was worth it though, well probably gonna have nightmares about it tonight but that's not unusual for me.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Two to add

Enders Game :
I was told this was dull and not very interesting. I remember most of Bob's review being a rant kinda about Orson Scott Card and how the films "twist" ending is ruined by how the film plays it out but I decided to watch it cause it was on Streaming and I felt like it and the film is fine maybe wavering on actually good at times. I can see some of the complaints Bob brought up as being valid but holy crap do I think Bob missed like the beating your over the head theme of the film about the nature of war which you know probably would have been worth talking about in relation to the film.


Nekrotronic :
A well made film (for the budget) which has both too much lore to and not enough lore at the same time.
Basic premise, a guy who works a shit job (literally he's some-one who collects human waste from what are implied to be septic tanks and other places) finds out that he's actually a powerful necromancer and the last but 1in his line. The other in his particular line is his now immortal mother who has turned evil due to demons corrupting her soul while she was trying to exorcise them from the internet by uploading her own soul to the internet. His mother now being the big bad trying to absorb more souls to be able to fully take over the internet to harvest more souls at will and is planning to do this with Pokemon Go but it's ghosts not Pokemon on mobile phones. Guy ends up with other experience Necromancer who do necromancy work for a funded by a person only ever referred to as "The Client".

Aesthetically it looks cool lots of neon colours and for the most part pretty good effects (except the stock B movie gun fire effect and a few out of place sound effects). The films audio mix has issues in a couple of places but mostly it's very good by B-movie standards.

The big failing is clearly despite lore dumbs about about magical tracker units and clans of Necromancers and a long history for some of the characters it's clear some-one needed to sit down and hash out the rules for how necromancy as a power is meant to work or as a set of different powers. Things that Necromancy powers do in this film.
1) Allow you to "Save" a dying persons soul to act as a friendly wraith for you which is capable of fighting other wraiths and also interacting with the real world still to a limited degree.
2) Allow you to fire psychic blast waves
3) Allow you to do telekenetic control of objects
4) Allow you to save a nearly dying person using a necroportal
5) Allow you to make a persons head explode
6) Allow you to force demons out of a possessed person.
7) Allows you to suck out a persons soul
8) Allows you to summon demon souls through a Necroportal (which is a high tech 3D printer thing)

Problems with the lore and or films plot:

• Despite according to the lore having been fighting and slaying demons for millennia the only way to kill a demon is by drawing them through a Necroportal (implied to be a modern invention) while inside a pentagram and them blasting them with a giant plasma cannon (also a new invention) so how the hell was there ever any kind of fight being put up in the past by Necromancers before modern technology.
• When a Demons host is killed it exits and tries to possess another host, while necromancers try to force the demon into a containment box, however necromancers summoning a demon through a Necroportal have to wear ant-possession suits to stop the Demon trying to possess and take over them instead of passing through the portal. At no point is it explain why when not in an anti-possession suit it's fine for the necromancers to just kill hosts and there's no attempts by the demons to posess them.
• It's possible for a Demon's soul to take a human soul hostage if both have their bodies destroyed at one but if both are in the same body then the demon can't take the human soul hostage cause um..... the plot said so?
• The Wraith friend has the ability to hit a surface and send out these sort of weird corrupting tendrils but they're never given a use at all or explained as to what it's meant to do. It's only relevant to the plot once and that's cause the friend does it and cause the main guy to flinch and set off a bomb early. Yet the effect is used like 5 separate times in the film.
• The whole client angle never goes anywhere.
• The main villain is shown early on to have a sort of whole evil corporate board working for her, they appear once and never come up again nor is there any ending for them or comeuppance for helping the villain.
• Wraiths are built up as some big threat but mostly they just seem to be kind shitty trolls who just fuck with people and drag them around screaming at them and don't seem to be able to actually do much harm other than be annoying and waste time.
  

 

[McElroy]

Aquaman (2018)

Looked pretty good in IMAX. When people talk about "shockingly bad" I'd expect the worst parts of Black Panther or the Ang Lee Hulk.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Blackhawk Down

Just one long action scene. For the most part all the bad guys are identical black people with no character and all the heroes are identical white guys so I can't tell which have characters and which don't.

Based on a true event, but Hollywoodised quite a bit, so that may or may not mean anything. Apparently the US military demanded one change, that one soldier who was later convicted of child abuse was removed, which seems fair enough.

 

[BrawlMan]

Based on a true event, but Hollywoodised quite a bit, so that may or may not mean anything. Apparently the US military demanded one change, that one soldier who was later convicted of child abuse was removed, which seems fair enough.

If anything, it shows how cowardly the US military can be sometimes. God forbid, there is any grey areas or not everyone is clean and pure. Even back then, I felt it was not the best decision when finding out that later detail.

Aquaman (2018)

Apparently this movie made over $1 billion at the box office. How?

Because it's Smokin' Sexy Style!!! The movie is the underwater version of King Arthur, Black Panther, Flash Gordon, and Devil May Cry 3. Aquaman is colorful and know what it wants to be. The characters all have charisma, bounce off of each other, and despite being silly and aware of it, the serious moments that do come up have meaning and don't feel overdone or out of some misguided attempt to be "mature/adult". It's doing nothing new, but being honest about itself. Unlike Batman V. Superman that went overboard on the darkness and the dull color palette, this movie, Wonder Woman, and Shazam all have some type of life put in to it. Aquaman I was never bored or frustrated, and just nails it with hero and villain dynamic. If there is an advantage the DCEU has over most MCU films, it's the villains. Zod, Orm, and Thaddeus Sivana are villains that are humanized and not just there to get a beating. There is nothing wrong with that sometimes, but it gets repetitive and blends in too many times with the rest of MCU films. Nothing stands out. Aquaman may have flash, but there is substance. The details are there, but kept simple, making the film all the more enjoyable.

I'd expect the worst parts of Black Panther

Silence! BP is awesome. It has some flaws, but it's a good film. I disagree big time.

 

[Agema]

Looked pretty good in IMAX. When people talk about "shockingly bad" I'd expect the worst parts of Black Panther or the Ang Lee Hulk.

The characters spend all their time in scenes that don't look real. Even the ones that are supposed to be in bits of the real world. They're in Sicily at some point. It looks painfully like a movie set with a CGI backing. The lighthouse doesn't look like a real lighthouse on a real bit of coast. Every time they're on a boat, it doesn't look like they're anywhere near real water or even the real outdoors. In fact, I'm not sure there's a single minute of this movie done outdoors. And what the fuck is it with the sky always being a bit cloudy with the sun shining through in places with a riot of colour and tons of bloom?