Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[BrawlMan]

I decided to watch Drive (1997) again out of boredom and wanting to watch it again. Expect me to ramble.

I mentioned how this movie was Rush Hour before Rush Hour became a thing. Ironic, as the director, Steven Wang, was inspired by Hong Kong Cinema (including some gun-fu and slow motion gun shots), Jackie Chan (Mark Dacascos was 17 at the time and met the main in Taiwan), and Japanese Cinema. To the point that a Japanese stun team helped out with the fight choreography and have their names and stunt company in the credits. This movie almost feels like a prototype Matrix in terms of East Asian style action sequences. It's kinda sad Drive didn't pave the way for more Eastern style action in Hollywood movies, but The Matrix and Blade did. At least Drive got more recognition as the years went on.

The only flaws with this film is some obvious blue screen effects that show up for a few microseconds near the end. It really shows that they were on a low budget, but makes me wonder why they even bothered for these minor shots, if they didn't need them. It's rarely comes up, so it's not a deal breaker. For those in the USA, when you get the Blu Ray version (from MVD), you automatically get the Director's Cut. As it was intended to be seen before the US butchered it with the theatrical cut. The US version is on the disc as a "bonus", but it's not worth viewing. You lose 20 minutes of run time of a 112 minute film, that has good character moments, and rushes the pacing causing it to feel uneven. The other bonus features on the Blu Ray are much better though.

 

[Hawki]

Toy Story (9/10)

I'll spare you a plot summary and explanation as to why I went back to view this film, but TL, DR, the film still holds up excellently after all these years. There isn't a single line of dialogue that feels kiddy, the animation holds up surprisingly well (even for the human models, bar a few exceptions), and watching it now, the pacing is excellent. Not a single second is wasted. Giving this 9 rather than 10, because I could nitpick this film to hell and back, but that's really just nitpicks.

After all these years, still excellent. Holds up just as well for me as an adult as it did for me as a kid.

 

[Samtemdo8]

Saw the 1978 adaption of Lord of the Rings by Ralph Bakshi.

I am of the belief that somethings of this film is superior to the Jackson films.

I truly think this movie has the FAR better Aragorn and Frodo.

 

[Gordon_4]

Saw the 1978 adaption of Lord of the Rings by Ralph Bakshi.

I am of the belief that somethings of this film is superior to the Jackson films.

I truly think this movie has the FAR better Aragorn and Frodo.

I prefer Jackson’s Lord of the Rings overall; Viggo Mortensen was a godsend for the role of Aragorn.

 

[Samtemdo8]

I prefer Jackson’s Lord of the Rings overall; Viggo Mortensen was a godsend for the role of Aragorn.

What if I told you that Peter Jackson originally wanted Daniel Day Lewis for the role of Aragorn and he tried to cast him many times, only for Daniel to constantly turn it down.

 

[Ezekiel]

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

I skipped European Vacation. This is a lot more slapstick and mushier than Harold Ramis' 1983 movie. Also no tits. They don't even actually go on a vacation. The idea is the same: Chevy Chase's character is overly optimistic and nice and then snaps after everything gets messed up. I can't feel that sorry for him for not getting his Christmas bonus when he has such a nice house and can support three people and himself. The two kid actors from the original were replaced. I didn't like the boy. The kids would have been 23 and 21. They could have made it work. The older one just wouldn't have been living at the house, would have had to come home for Christmas. As its own thing it's okay. It's likeable, but like I said, very slapstick (in often unfunny ways) and mushy. Oh, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss is in this. She plays the neighbor annoyed by the Chevy Chase character. She and her husband are on the receiving ends of jokes.

 

[Dalisclock]

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

I skipped European Vacation. This is a lot more slapstick and mushier than Harold Ramis' 1983 movie. Also no tits. They don't even actually go on a vacation. The idea is the same: Chevy Chase's character is overly optimistic and nice and then snaps after everything gets messed up. I can't feel that sorry for him for not getting his Christmas bonus when he has such a nice house and can support three people and himself. The two kid actors from the original were replaced. I didn't like the boy. The kids would have been 23 and 21. They could have made it work. The older one just wouldn't have been living at the house, would have had to come home for Christmas. As its own thing it's okay. It's likeable, but like I said, very slapstick (in often unfunny ways) and mushy. Oh, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss is in this. She plays the neighbor annoyed by the Chevy Chase character. She and her husband are on the receiving ends of jokes.

I remember 3 parts of this movie.
1. The house having way too many fucking lights.
2. Eddie kidnapping the boss.
3. The opening animation and song.

Everything else is a chevy chase blurr.

 

[Gordon_4]

What if I told you that Peter Jackson originally wanted Daniel Day Lewis for the role of Aragorn and he tried to cast him many times, only for Daniel to constantly turn it down.

I would say first that I know that, and second I would say thank fuck for that. Daniel Day Lewis is an interesting actor, but I feel his method acting would have just pissed everyone else off.

 

[gorfias]

The Father on Starz. 8.5/10.
Amazing acting and production all around.
I love "unreliable narrator" and non-linear stories. This one is of a proud, independent old man (Anthony Hopkins) declining into dementia. It is told through his eyes so you can be certain, you are not getting the real story. But you can piece it together.
Different actors play the same characters. He doesn't recognize them, so you do not either. He can think he is one time, remember something and thinking it is happening now, with facts from the present that do not fit, merged in. (Example: he think he is in the past, speaking to one person about his daughter going to live in Paris, to the surprise of the person to whom he is speaking as, he is actually remembering a time frame before her decision had been made).
We get hints of the non-linear nature of the movie. Items in his home multiply and recede. His dress can go from formal with suit and tie, to PJs and back again.
Masterful.

 

[Xprimentyl]

The Father on Starz. 8.5/10.
Amazing acting and production all around.
I love "unreliable narrator" and non-linear stories. This one is of a proud, independent old man (Anthony Hopkins) declining into dementia. It is told through his eyes so you can be certain, you are not getting the real story. But you can piece it together.
Different actors play the same characters. He doesn't recognize them, so you do not either. He can think he is one time, remember something and thinking it is happening now, with facts from the present that do not fit, merged in. (Example: he think he is in the past, speaking to one person about his daughter going to live in Paris, to the surprise of the person to whom he is speaking as, he is actually remembering a time frame before her decision had been made).
We get hints of the non-linear nature of the movie. Items in his home multiply and recede. His dress can go from formal with suit and tie, to PJs and back again.
Masterful.

I watched this a few month ago, and yes, it was a great film. If anyone hasn't, watch it.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Coma

Prime UK

Rating: B+

In brief: this is a Russian language film dubbed into English that plot wise is Inception does Metro 2033 (The video game series)

Longer ramble: The Russian film industry is a peculiar thing to observe from a western perspective just seeing what makes it over here. From the much celebrated Battleship Potemkin (which I've admittedly not watched) to the esoteric mess of Nightwatch; to the actually pretty spectacular Daywatch, which is only weighed down by needing to see the first film to understand some of the plot aspects. All the way to the Russian film industries kinda poor attempt to create it's own Avengers series with The Guardians, which just set up a ton of plot ideas for a sequel that will never come and probably ran out of money at the end to film a proper ending fight so had to quickly come up with an ending that could be quickly done in CGI.

Coma is a 2020 release that honestly feels like a victim of the pandemic. I only learned of Coma by accident because despite not being for same on Google Play it popped up as recommended for me and possibly coming soon there. For the most part this film got buried and it's one of those films that's made it onto Prime in the UK and I'm not sure how but it's there.

Story wise the film is about an architect who wakes up to find he's in the world of Coma a shared consciousness space that every person in the world in a coma goes to. A place constructed of peoples memories combining together so there's things like town districts made up of peoples memories of towns and the industrial area made up of many peoples memories of factories and manufacturing plants. In this place people survive struggling against the strange unkillable beings call The Reapers. So far a moderate sized band of people have been able to set up a settlement by exploiting a memory hole (Two locations linked by the one memory of the object in both, in this case a bus which one person remembered in a field while another remembered it in an old oil storage facility thus the bus exists in both and entering one allows people to exit in another). The Reapers themselves are drawn to signs of life and are early on revealed to actually be what becomes of people who become braindead within a coma and they are the cause of the spread of somewhat inexplicable brain death in other coma patients. Being a world created by shared consciousness as such some people based on their real wold skills are able to develop special abilities in Coma. Spirit can create ghost copies of people and sense Reapers. Phantom posesses super strength, enhanced reflexes and enhanced speed. Fly can heal peoples injuries. Pilot can sense new people entering Coma, Astronomer can map out the world of Coma, Kabel is a master of electronic and hacking and Gnome is a master weapons crafter.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

While their base of operations is relatively safe because people don't remember the path to the oil refinery thus it is a floating island with nothing but the bus memory hole allowing people to get there, there is a constant issue of people once again remembering how to get there and thus causing paths to be created connecting to it. Along with the fear the Reapers will once day see some-one enter the bus and follow them through. If a reaper gets in then it would never be safe again due to the fact reapers can't be killed only slowed down by attacking them causing them to turn to black goo if enough damage is done but ultimately sees them reform themselves again. The issue with the paths to the oil refinery is dealt with by blowing them up with explosives but the group is concerned about them running low. Each night when the survivors sleep their rooms fill with manifestations of their dreams made reality, dreams being memories of their time in the read world however due to everyone in Coma having amnesia though few people know anything about what the items from their dreams mean. Fly only knows that in her real life she couldn't love who she wanted to love.

The leader of this band of survivors is Yan a man who it's said has lived for 15 years in Coma but time is distorted in Coma so days is Coma are mere minutes or hours in the real world. It's also said Yan was able to once leave Coma and wake up but unfortunately slipped back into it. Yan's plan is to lead the survivors to a mythical island somewhere in Coma where there are no Reapers and Reapers cannot reach so the survivors can live peacefully in Coma and be whoever they wish to be and live how they wish to live.

I won't say much more other than not everything going on is as straight forward as it seems. The film itself is pretty high quality with sort of MCU or near MCU level special effects with only a couple of places where the Green screen seemed a bit too obvious or effects seemed a bit rough. The main downfall is oddly the English voice acting for the dub which falls quite flat at times with people calling for urgent action sounding almost bored rather than concerned about evens going on and a few moments of somewhat stilted dialogue due to the fact it's been translated from Russian. This isn't a Blockbuster when measured against other Blockbuster films that have been made in Hollywood but it still lands as what I'd call a filler action film. The kind of film you will happily watch but it's not going to be one you consider the best of the action genre or a must see but it's still worth seeing. I do personally wish the film had done a bit more with some of the ideas explored later in the film rather than being a bit of an information dump explaining things with little to no foreshadowing but it works well enough.

If you just want a film for a Saturday night that's a bit of something different but will leave you fairly satisfied then Coma is a good choice.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

The Power of Dog (Netflix)
Very moody, well shot and acted dingy unsettling drama set on a ranch in what could be called part of the "western" genre I suppose. A few minutes in the soundtrack (by...Radiohead?) decides to maintain a thorough sense of foreboding throughout, while the human-built environments radiate with joyless bedraggled desolation. Kirsten Dunst, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons pull out their best, with the latter two presenting a mild bit of role swapping compared to their usual other film personalities. Its ponderous nature is way more interested in exploring character dynamics' psychology than blood-soaked spectacle, so those looking for excitement more on the action side of the genre will likely be disappointed. But I thought it was pretty well done and suited to a quiet, depressed evening to misdirect those suicidal tendencies.

21 Bridges (Netflix)
This felt quite like a classic action thriller, a fine romp for those who may say silly things like "they don't make movies like that anymore" while not bothering to look even just a tiny bit beyond the top 5 cinema listings. You got your cops and robbers, your drug deals gone bad, your cops arguing about getting the job done no matter what, your shootouts, your chases, your intersectional bonding moments...the whole shabang! Somewhat elevated by a cast with Chadwick Boseman as an ever-watchable leading man, J.K. Simmons doing his majestic thing along with the rest doing enough to maintain a level of quality. No surprises to found here, but otherwise it's a nicely crafted distraction for a brief moment.

 

[thebobmaster]

The Mutilator (1984)

Yep, that was certainly a slasher movie. Great gore, some fairly creative kills (including one that made me cringe to watch), but with a bunch of scenes revolving around characters that I quite honestly didn't care to even remember the names of, as most of them were doomed from the start, and the acting certainly did nothing to change my mind. It was kind of interesting that it didn't bother with any sort of whodunnit, making it obvious from the start who the killer is and what their motive was, but honestly...there's this series on YoutTube called the Kill Count, hosted by James A. Janisse for the team Dead Meat. Watching that will give you about the same experience of this particular film without all the padding to "develop" the victims.

 

[gorfias]

[Russian 2020 film COMA]

On Prime here in the US too. Thanks for the tip!

 

[09philj]

A Clockwork Orange

It's a good adaptation. Does justice to the book. Psychedelic ultra-heightened 60s insanity is an interesting choice of direction given the source material, but it works.

 

[Agema]

Starcrash (1978)

Oh my god but this is some incredibly bad sub-Flash Gordon / Star Wars nonsense. There's some sort of daredevil Han Solo/Barbarella-ish pilot called Stella Star (seriously), and she starts off an outlaw, gets captured, coerced into saving the Galactic Empire and ends up a heroine. The script is incredibly garbage, random nonsense: I could believe the director didn't even speak English. It's like someone checked out popular SF movies and a load of cliches and rammed them all together with no coherence whatsoever. Stella, for instance, is both able to kick ass when convenient to the plot, and yet at other times a damsel in distress screaming "Help me!" and falling over when imperilled (perhaps unsurprising in those impractical heels). Christopher Plummer is in this: Christ but he must have had a lot of rent to pay. It's also got a very early role for David Hasselhoff. There is however, one big plus to this movie: Stella is played by Caroline Munro who was, shall we say, formative in my early pubescent realisation of female attractiveness, so it's got a certain nostalgia value.

 

[Dalisclock]

Starcrash (1978)

Oh my god but this is some incredibly bad sub-Flash Gordon / Star Wars nonsense. There's some sort of daredevil Han Solo/Barbarella-ish pilot called Stella Star (seriously), and she starts off an outlaw, gets captured, coerced into saving the Galactic Empire and ends up a heroine. The script is incredibly garbage, random nonsense: I could believe the director didn't even speak English. It's like someone checked out popular SF movies and a load of cliches and rammed them all together with no coherence whatsoever. Stella, for instance, is both able to kick ass when convenient to the plot, and yet at other times a damsel in distress screaming "Help me!" and falling over when imperilled (perhaps unsurprising in those impractical heels). Christopher Plummer is in this: Christ but he must have had a lot of rent to pay. It's also got a very early role for David Hasselhoff. There is however, one big plus to this movie: Stella is played by Caroline Munro who was, shall we say, formative in my early pubescent realisation of female attractiveness, so it's got a certain nostalgia value.

I'm pretty sure I saw this on MST3K(and it was hilariously bad). Chris Plummer apparently said he got a free trip to Rome out of it, and that he'd do porn for a free trip to Rome. Can't say I blame the guy.

 

[Gordon_4]

I'm pretty sure I saw this on MST3K(and it was hilariously bad). Chris Plummer apparently said he got a free trip to Rome out of it, and that he'd do porn for a free trip to Rome. Can't say I blame the guy.

Well if he went to Rome to shoot porn, he's gotten both a free trip to Rome and his leg over a few times. I'm not sure how he loses on that one.

 

[Mina Stone]

last movie watched green mile (1999), literally cried at the end ( must watch )