Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★ review of The Third Saturday in October: Part V (2022)

“If you’re here to get your brains scrambled, boy, you’re in luck. Because the skillet’s on the stove, and the grease is already hot.” Despite the title, there are only two movies in this series. They also both released on the same day, and it really doesn't matter whether you watch this or The...

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[thebobmaster]

A ★½ review of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

"I -cannot abandon this work now. It is too important. Not just for me, but, believe me, for everyone. And it must come first." This film has a bit of an interesting production story, but not an overall troubled one. It was originally meant to be directed by Francis Ford Coppola to follow up...

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[thebobmaster]

A ★★½ review of Beauty and the Beast (2017)

"There's a beast running wild, there's no question. But I fear the wrong monster's been unleashed." This film follows Belle (Emma Watson). After her father Maurice (Kevin Kline) stumbles across an enchanted castle and gets held prisoner by its master, The Beast (Dan Stevens). Upon trying to save...

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[Thaluikhain]

A ★★½ review of Beauty and the Beast (2017)

"There's a beast running wild, there's no question. But I fear the wrong monster's been unleashed." This film follows Belle (Emma Watson). After her father Maurice (Kevin Kline) stumbles across an enchanted castle and gets held prisoner by its master, The Beast (Dan Stevens). Upon trying to save...

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Eh, always thought this film was made to appeal to those who are into Emma Watson seducing a buffalo.

(That not really being my thing, I've not watched it to confirm)

 

[Piscian]

I'm rewatching the recent POTA trilogy as I'm actually looking for forward to WFTPOTA.

I started watching Rise Of the Planet of The Apes yesterday and it's kinda hilarious how dumb the movie is. Which is in itself funny because it all still works. It requires a lot "well I can't prove thats not how that works" and eyeroll versus the sort of thing I was complaining about the other day with TV series production getting lazy with storyboarding and plotting. Everything is correctly plotted in the way you as the audience member are so invested in whats happening that you overlook how dumb it is.

Its like in Star wars where hyperspace travel and parsecs don't really make sense, but they are smart enough to not give you enough information to argue.

So much of Rise is dumb, the way testing is done, how the lab is managed, having corporate planning meetings at a lab, that guy coughing up blood on the clip board and going "huh must be allergies". The thing with apes at a pest detention center being cycled back through the lab. At the end of it you just gotta be like "Oh yeah covid-19 happened" and go


James Francos character is actually the only problem with the film. I don't think James is necessarily a bad actor but fuck he is awful in this. Just every lines he delivers makes me want to punch. If Simple Jack were a scientist, thats James Francos character. That said Andy Serkis and John Lithgow carry the entire film. It's weird to call a movie in switch only two characters carry the whole film an 8/10 but it really gets there.

 

[Casual Shinji]

So much of Rise is dumb, the way testing is done, how the lab is managed, having corporate planning meetings at a lab, that guy coughing up blood on the clip board and going "huh must be allergies".

That wasn't the guy assuming it was just allergies. He sneezes, remarks on how he's not as resilient as the lab apes, then he sees the blood on the clipboard and quickly excuses himself. As for the board meeting at the lab itself, I'm guessing that was done because they wanted to bring the ape in to show as proof.

 

[Piscian]

That wasn't the guy assuming it was just allergies. He sneezes, remarks on how he's not as resilient as the lab apes, then he sees the blood on the clipboard and quickly excuses himself. As for the board meeting at the lab itself, I'm guessing that was done because they wanted to bring the ape in to show as proof.

I was just summarizing.

Theres lots of stuff. The piss poor security in the lab. That he inhales that gas and its just like "whatever" Im cool I put my mask back on.

The fact that an ape some how hides being pregnant and having a baby in a place where theyre undergoing constant testing.

That hilarious scene where they try to trap bright eyes by... opening the cage.

I should note this is all the context that the "cure" is literally a virus. Like thats insane that you would be that lax with testing a fuckin virus. There were so many code red moments. They were also no where near ready for human trials, thats not how that works.

That hes just brings fucking ape home to the middle of San Francisco. And then he literally drives him right up the lab parking lot like whatever. If even one person saw them there would have been a meltdown.

Again though Im not saying this is poor writing its just jumping like...a lot of sharks. It really falls of James Franco being just the dumbest scientist ever and you can only excuse his dad dying as so much of his terrible choices. The movie relies on a lot of dumb people being dumb all at once. But again covid-19 happened so I just shake my head.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I was just summarizing.

Theres lots of stuff. The piss poor security in the lab. That he inhales that gas and its just like "whatever" Im cool I put my mask back on.

The fact that an ape some how hides being pregnant and having a baby in a place where theyre undergoing constant testing.

That hilarious scene where they try to trap bright eyes by... opening the cage.

I should note this is all the context that the "cure" is literally a virus. Like thats insane that you would be that lax with testing a fuckin virus. There were so many code red moments. They were also no where near ready for human trials, thats not how that works.

That hes just brings fucking ape home to the middle of San Francisco. And then he literally drives him right up the lab parking lot like whatever. If even one person saw them there would have been a meltdown.

Again though Im not saying this is poor writing its just jumping like...a lot of sharks. It really falls of James Franco being just the dumbest scientist ever and you can only excuse his dad dying as so much of his terrible choices. The movie relies on a lot of dumb people being dumb all at once. But again covid-19 happened so I just shake my head.

It's retro actively trying to fit a silly 60's movie plot into a more modern sci-fi jacket. And you can see it chafing here and there. The whole 'we tried to cure cancer, but accidentally made a doomsday device' was already groan worthy when I Am Legend did it.

It also makes no sense that Ceasar knows what a supplicating gesture is when he's never been around apes before, or that he somehow loses all the ape instincts we saw him display before entering the ape sanctuary when first confronted by Rocket. Or that when he first gets there he mistakes a painted sky on the wall for the real thing. Like, you've been drawing pictures and making models dude.

The internal logic in this movie comes and goes. Yet still not as immersion shattering as seeing a giant gorilla riding a horse.

 

[Piscian]

It's retro actively trying to fit a silly 60's movie plot into a more modern sci-fi jacket. And you can see it chafing here and there. The whole 'we tried to cure cancer, but accidentally made a doomsday device' was already groan worthy when I Am Legend did it.

It also makes no sense that Ceasar knows what a supplicating gesture is when he's never been around apes before, or that he somehow loses all the ape instincts we saw him display before entering the ape sanctuary when first confronted by Rocket. Or that when he first gets there he mistakes a painted sky on the wall for the real thing. Like, you've been drawing pictures and making models dude.

The internal logic in this movie comes and goes. Yet still not as immersion shattering as seeing a giant gorilla riding a horse.

Lol yeah I noticed when Franco is like "whats he doing?" and I was like "Yeah wtf is he doing because he shouldn't have any idea what that is?", but also how does James Franco a, fucking scientist, not know what that gesture means? Like I learned what that is when I was fucking child.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★ review of Christopher Robin (2018)

“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.” This film acts as a distant sequel to the Winnie the Pooh stories. Now a grown man, Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor) is an efficiency manager at a luggage company named Winslow's. Under the orders of Giles Winslow, Jr. (Mark...

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[Johnny Novgorod]

Rebel Moon Part 2 - The Scaramanga

The Empire has a lot of things. It has spaceships and war mechs and interstellar travel. It has plasma rifles and laser swords. Interplanetary communication. Robot soldiers. Astral planes. A machine that resurrects the dead (no biggie).

You know what it doesn't have? Flour. Like 30 or 40 sacks of flour. They need it for bread and cake. In comes Veldt, a medieval town on a (rebel) moon that has precisely 30 or 40 sacks of flour lining the walls of the urban center where you can research loom and wheelbarrow and advance to the bronze age. Score!

The Empire wants that flour and will go to war with Veldt for it. That's the last hour of the movie. The first hour is... I think it's the 5 days it takes Veldt to harvest the wheat. They have carts with antigravity fields but they still use scythes like it's the middle ages. In 5 days they harvest all of the wheat, train the villagers in the art of war and turn the whole town into a death trap.

Halfway through the movie the characters realize they've never really talked to each other or interacted much at all so each of them tells a little story about why they're sad and tortured. What about this guy? The Empire killed his men. Lady? The Empire killed her people. Other lady? The Empire killed her village. And so on. We get flashbacks for everything.

In summary, Zack should learn to shoot two actors on camera without leaving one of them out of focus.

 

[Chimpzy]

Halfway through the movie the characters realize they've never really talked to each other or interacted much at all so each of them tells a little story about why they're sad and tortured. What about this guy? The Empire killed his men. Lady? The Empire killed her people. Other lady? The Empire killed her village. And so on. We get flashbacks for everything.

That whole scene of sitting around the table telling their back stories is one of the best worst things I've seen. Like something they'll be teaching in schools.

 

[Gordon_4]

Godzilla x Kong: the New Empire.

The most enduring image I will have of this film is Godzilla sleeping curled up in the Colosseum like a cat in a clothes basket.

EDIT: But to expand, while I can't say I was totally in love with the movie I do feel a great deal of respect for a lot of it. Its a very confident science fiction film that never seems to feel the need to stop dead and explain why there's a knock off Chris Pratt from Jurassic World who's doing dentistry work for Kong. Or where Monarch developed its bitchin' transports and other technology. It just trusts that since we're four movies deep now that we're into it and just keeps going. It does suffer a bit of info-dump syndrome but I've seen worse.

Also, the soundtrack to this one is eclectic but fun, however its true strength is its score. I missed who its composer was but they've put together a pretty funky set of beats for this movie.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Hundreds of Beavers (2024)

There were a lot of beavers in this, man.

Hundreds of Beavers is a silent slapstick comedy movie about a lone fur trapper surviving and eventually going to war with a large group of beavers in the 19th Century midwest. It's... very silly. To paint you a picture, HoB is, in equal measures, paying homage to silent era slapstick comedy in the style of Chaplin and Keaton and early Loony Tunes and Fleischer Brothers cartoons, utilizing a green screen heavy mixed media approach that blends live action and animation.

It's two hours of zany, and purely visual comedy that uses cartoon logic (and occasionally video game logic) about a guy trying to hunt, and oftentimes getting terrorized, by animals. Almost all of which are depicted by a couple of guys in cartoony animal costumes. What it made me think of was Skinamarink in that it was an almost purely formalistic exercise that I think I would have enjoyed much more if it had been a good deal shorter.

The thing about Hundreds of Beavers is, I don't even have to imagine what a leaner version of it would look like. The final 30 minutes of the movie are absolutely great and formatted in a way that they'd make a fantastic short film. Meanwhile, the about 1 hour and 15 minutes of buildup were a lot more hit and miss and felt like they had quite a bit of b-tier material and some unnecessary repetition thrown in to pad them out.

Despite everything though, I don't wanna be sour on this. It's a small, fairly low budget project by a couple of guys that swings big and once it gets going, really hits it out of the park. Movies with a hundred times its budget struggle to have a climax this good. It carries forth the influence of not only the early 20th century slapstick movies and cartoons it pays homage to, but also the spirit of do it yourself, web original, couple-of-mates-and-a-greenscreen video productions of the early 21st century and shows the potential of such enterprises when they evolve and mature, rather than collapse into creative stagnation and egotistical infighting.

So, I recommend this. It features about 30 minutes of amazing and 75 minutes of mostly pretty good modern silent comedy that, at their best, are genuinely bold and innovative.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

That whole scene of sitting around the table telling their back stories is one of the best worst things I've seen. Like something they'll be teaching in schools.

And as usual The Simpsons already did it but better.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Rebel Moon Part 2 - The Scaramanga

Do you think he's doing this on purpose? I've never liked the man's movies in general, but this just seems kinda sad.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Do you think he's doing this on purpose? I've never liked the man's movies in general, but this just seems kinda sad.

I don't know what drives this man.

 

[Bartholen]

I rewatched Nope with a friend, since it's a movie that really warrants a second watch. I feel I was on the money on my first assessment of it: it's an allegory about showbusiness, its cycles of exploitation and hunger for fame, and how it chews and spits out the very people it builds itself on. There were a lot of lines where I went "ooooooh, so that's what that meant / was foreshadowing". There are some scenes that feel less impactful on a rewatch when you know what it's about, but the whole is still very strong.

That whole scene of sitting around the table telling their back stories is one of the best worst things I've seen. Like something they'll be teaching in schools.

Oooh, I'm excited for that. I loved part 1 for how shit it was, it was absolutely hilarious. I'm watching part 2 with friends and alcohol next weekend, and everything I've seen of it so far points to it being no less shitty than part 1.

 

[Piscian]

1922

Well that was fucking depressing. This is on Netflix. It had been on my todo list for years but Ive gradually lost my appetite for pure horror. If Im being honest Im turning into a pleb who kinda just wants movies that put me in a good mood and the very best horror is often the kind that stabs at the soul a bit. I force myself to watch these kinda movies lest the mind go stale on the usual Hollywood lcd faire.

For those not familiar, in 1922 Thomas James is a farmer who decides to kill his wife. Its for entirely cold, pragmatic, reasons. The film, based on the Stephen King story of the same name is a bit of a homage to Edger Allen Poe, with Jane, over the course of 1922, reaping the rewards of his action.

Suffice to say its all downhill and very ... very depressing. Its a good movie, but I can only recommend it to those excited by an opportunity to fuck up their day.

7.5/10 because it made me sad and a bit horrified

 

[thebobmaster]

I am surprised at how conflicted my feelings after watching this were.

A ★★★½ review of Hellraiser: Inferno (2000)

"Hunt the Engineer, and the Engineer hunts you." This film did not have the smoothest production, as is obvious when you realize that it was a horror movie executive produced by the Weinsteins. Specifically, by the time the budget was finalized, only $50,000 were left for special effects. For a...

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