Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

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Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
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Mar 3, 2009
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Nominally, but I'm not seeing the connection myself. Yeah, there's an old guy and his daughter mostly alone and a ship visits them, otherwise they aren't that similar.
There's an old guy who's a "magician" through research (albeit magic in the sense of any sufficiently advanced technology in FP) plus his daughter, plus a servant and a monster (i.e. Ariel and Caliban). Plus there are characters in the spaceship with distinct parallels to characters in the play. Morbius is also quite like Prospero, in the sense of beingoutwardly rational and civilised, but underneath that controlling, jealous and prone to anger. There are some similarities in themes too: I think the play spends plenty of time dwelling on the duality of human nature, as does the film via a more modern lens of psychology.
 

PsychedelicDiamond

Wild at Heart and weird on top
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Jan 30, 2011
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Also just found out this guy plays apparently, the Joker. We'll see if they stick with it. There is now a deleted scene floating around...


I feel that no matter how well he might do as the Joker, people will mainly remember the wasted opportunity of not using Joaquin Phoenix' version.
 

gorfias

Unrealistic but happy
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May 13, 2009
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I feel that no matter how well he might do as the Joker, people will mainly remember the wasted opportunity of not using Joaquin Phoenix' version.
I don't think they can do it for 2 reasons. I think the time frame is wrong. Phoenix's version comes into being in the 1980s. I think this movie is supposed to be in 2020ish. If Phoenix was 45 ish then, he'd be 85ish now. Too old. But Gotham seems even darker in Batman 2022 than the 1980s version. So much so that I don't think it is the same continuity. BTW: I read one person posit that if the Wayne's were coming back from a movie when mugged, it might have been a Jack Ass movie. I like to think it was 2005's The Legend of Zorro. I think Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns series from the mid 60s has the Waynes mugged when returning from a Zorro movie. Given the time frame though, might have been a re-run of the 1957 version.
 

Gordon_4

The Big Engine
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Apr 3, 2020
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Australia
I feel that no matter how well he might do as the Joker, people will mainly remember the wasted opportunity of not using Joaquin Phoenix' version.
You mean a version of the Joker that even rookie Batman would have no problem outsmarting or outfighting? Yeah, real shame that version isn’t here to add zero tension to anything.
 
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Bartholen

At age 6 I was born without a face
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Jul 1, 2020
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I don't think they can do it for 2 reasons. I think the time frame is wrong. Phoenix's version comes into being in the 1980s. I think this movie is supposed to be in 2020ish. If Phoenix was 45 ish then, he'd be 85ish now. Too old. But Gotham seems even darker in Batman 2022 than the 1980s version. So much so that I don't think it is the same continuity. BTW: I read one person posit that if the Wayne's were coming back from a movie when mugged, it might have been a Jack Ass movie. I like to think it was 2005's The Legend of Zorro. I think Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns series from the mid 60s has the Waynes mugged when returning from a Zorro movie. Given the time frame though, might have been a re-run of the 1957 version.
Even though the timeline doesn't match at all, I still like to think The Batman and Joker sort of take place in the same continuity. Joker ends in a way where Arthur Fleck has become not the clown prince of crime, but an idea, a representation of the resentment of the underclass of Gotham. In my headcanon Fleck dies only a few months after the end of that movie, but the idea of Joker stays as a sort of myth in the criminal underworld. Over the following decades you have multiple figures take up the moniker while scrubbing their past entirely, keeping the Joker alive in a V for Vendetta kind of way. And Keoughan's depiction is just the latest nutcase to pick up the mantle. Yes, it's very fanfiction-y, but forming these kinds of loose connections is IMO more fun than having to always stick to the rigid framework of a single shared universe. It's sort of how people theorize about the Soulsborne games all taking place within the same continuity.
 
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thebobmaster

Elite Member
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Apr 5, 2020
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I always saw Joaquin Phoenix's Joker as a Joker, not the Joker. It could very well take place in the same universe as The Batman, and just be a legacy title.
 
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Xprimentyl

Made you look...
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Aug 13, 2011
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Step Up 1 & 2: Fuck's sake / Great

Misfits bring urban dance to a "proper" dancing school, cultures clash, they are ostracized, then accepted.

Prototypical "opposites attract" romance garbage. I told her I don't like these kinds of films, but my girlfriend insisted I watch them with her, now I challenge anyone to find anything more contrived than that utter bullshit. So formulaic and insipid. This type of story has been told dozens upon dozens of times; why do they keep making them?? And apparently there's several more Step Up sequels, but I'm not watching them, Jesus; they've already taken 3 hours of my life, they're not getting anymore.
 

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
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Step Up 1 & 2: Fuck's sake / Great

Misfits bring urban dance to a "proper" dancing school, cultures clash, they are ostracized, then accepted.

Prototypical "opposites attract" romance garbage. I told her I don't like these kinds of films, but my girlfriend insisted I watch them with her, now I challenge anyone to find anything more contrived than that utter bullshit. So formulaic and insipid. This type of story has been told dozens upon dozens of times; why do they keep making them?? And apparently there's several more Step Up sequels, but I'm not watching them, Jesus; they've already taken 3 hours of my life, they're not getting anymore.
I've only ever seen the first one and that was it. Superficial trash and so forgettable. Did you know they made five movies in two seasons of a TV series of this franchise? Who keeps watching these?
 
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PsychedelicDiamond

Wild at Heart and weird on top
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Jan 30, 2011
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I don't think they can do it for 2 reasons. I think the time frame is wrong. Phoenix's version comes into being in the 1980s. I think this movie is supposed to be in 2020ish. If Phoenix was 45 ish then, he'd be 85ish now. Too old. But Gotham seems even darker in Batman 2022 than the 1980s version. So much so that I don't think it is the same continuity. BTW: I read one person posit that if the Wayne's were coming back from a movie when mugged, it might have been a Jack Ass movie. I like to think it was 2005's The Legend of Zorro. I think Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns series from the mid 60s has the Waynes mugged when returning from a Zorro movie. Given the time frame though, might have been a re-run of the 1957 version.
Yeah, I know it wouldn't work out unless you really contort yourself and assume that Arthur Fleck, the character, is a lot younger than Phoenix, the actor playing him and Gotham City's architecture are too different. I didn't seriously expect them going for it, but Phoenix's version of the Joker will always, in some way, feel incomplete if there's no Batman for him to fight.

You mean a version of the Joker that even rookie Batman would have no problem outsmarting or outfighting? Yeah, real shame that version isn’t here to add zero tension to anything.
The way he was at the end of Joker, no, there's probably not much he could do to pose a threat to Batman as seen in The Batman, but Joker pretty much ended right at the beginning of him actually becoming the Joker. I could see him eventually turning into a criminal at least on par with Dano's Riddler. But... yeah, obviously not what they're going for with the The Batman sequel. I don't mind Keoghan in the role, he was great in Killing of a Sacred Deer.
 
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Gordon_4

The Big Engine
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Apr 3, 2020
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Step Up 1 & 2: Fuck's sake / Great

Misfits bring urban dance to a "proper" dancing school, cultures clash, they are ostracized, then accepted.

Prototypical "opposites attract" romance garbage. I told her I don't like these kinds of films, but my girlfriend insisted I watch them with her, now I challenge anyone to find anything more contrived than that utter bullshit. So formulaic and insipid. This type of story has been told dozens upon dozens of times; why do they keep making them?? And apparently there's several more Step Up sequels, but I'm not watching them, Jesus; they've already taken 3 hours of my life, they're not getting anymore.
Is that kind of clash still a thing in any dance school worth its salt? Sure in the 90s to early 2000s there might still be some snobbery and divide but surely by like 2010 at the latest most dancing schools were savvy enough to have Urban Dance as one of its courses?
 
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Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
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Mar 3, 2009
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Deep Water (2022)

So, those of us who remember the 1980s will remember Adrian Lyne as the guy who directed a load of sex and relationshp based thrillers (some erotic) like Indecent Proposal and 9 1/2 Weeks which could pass as intelligent to people who aren't that thoughtful, but were certainly quite daring by the mainstream standards of the day. Some of his films were quite good. I thought he'd retired or died. Evidently not, because this is one of his.

It's classic Lyne territory: an erotic psychological thriller. Ben Affleck plays Vic, a computer chip designer who keeps snails as pets and is generally quite unemotional. He is married to... oh, forgotten the character name (Monica?), played by Ana de Armas, who is an emotionally volatile woman that Vic allows to sleep around with whomever she pleases. Sometimes almost in front of him. I am in fact staggered at the way her squeezes just pop round to the house and chat to Vic as if there's no awkwardness at all talking to the guy whose wife you're screwing. All Vic's friends seem to think this liberated view of sex is somewhere between normal and admirable. Anyway, maybe Vic isn't quite as okay with his wife sleeping around as it seems, and how far is that displeasure going to go?

Almost all the main characters in this film are annoying. The plot is a weak confection, and the psychological thriller territory isn't that thrilling. Disappointingly given the title, water saliently crops up at lots of points in the film, and none of it is ever deep (like, deeper than the deep end of a backyard swimming pool). Although I suspect it's a reference to the saying "still waters run deep", as a description of Vic. Actually, now I think more on that, maybe there's some metaphor about something I can't tell you without spoilers... well, move on.

Also, I take back that all the main characters are annoying. The leads have a daughter, who is I guess seven-ish. The child is delightful. Cute, full of fun, and lights up every scene she's in. Quite how the daughter's so nice with such messed up parents is another matter, but she's probably the best thing about the film. She gets some extra footage at the end of the movie, just because the filmmakers must have noticed how cute she was too. So, kudos to that child actor.
 
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Hawki

Elite Member
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Mar 4, 2014
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Resident Evil: Extinction (6/10)

You might recall awhile ago that I rewatched the first two Anderson RE films. First one held up (not "good," but still enjoyable), while Apocalypse went slightly down for me. Having now rewatched Extinction (which is where the series started to lose me), it's actually gone up in my estimation. Still not "good," but I actually like it more than Apocalypse now.

That said, Extinction feels like a transition point between the nature of the first two films, and the worst excesses of the latter ones. There is, of course, the fact that the first two were loose adaptations, while Extinction starts its own thing, but watching Extinction in the knowledge of what comes after, there's certain 'tells' as to what's coming. As in:

-Extinction doesn't really follow off from Apocalypse naturally. Alice is separated from the characters there, for reasons that are explained, but the whereabouts of Jill and Angie are never even questioned. Furthermore, it actually retcons the ending of Apocalypse, as it establishes that the T-virus consumed the US "within weeks," but in Apocalypse, weeks pass between the bombing of Raccoon, and Alice being retrieved.

-The T-virus outbreak makes little sense. It's apparently so lethal that it can kill all plantlife on Earth, but unprotected humans are fine on the surface? I'll get to the desert-scape later, but from an in-universe standpoint, it's pretty silly.

-Not that the previous two films were immune from this, but Extinction embraces "rule of cool," even when it doesn't really make sense. Why are Alice clones being put through a testing ground? Don't know. Why, when the White Queen tells Alice that she can synthezie a cure in the Umbrella base, is this apparently forgotten about with Alice telling Umbrella that she's coming for them (with the clones), rather than staying around to work on developing a cure, which she can do with her blood? How is a helicopter going to fly all the survivours to Alaska?

So, yeah. Extinction is flawed, and the leaps of logic seen here will only get worse as the series goes on. However, taking the film on its own, I think there's actually a fair bit to like about it. For instance:

-I really like the tone. This might come from directing style (bear in mind that Extinction's director isn't the same as either director who directed the first two), but in comparison to what's come before, Extinction feels very subdued. There's not much over the top spectacle, no slow-mo, Extinction has a kind of 'grit' to it in how everything is portrayed. This isn't just for the survivours, but Umbrella as well. While Umbrella will enter the realm of "stupid evil" later in the series, here, what's conveyed is that Umbrella, while a group of amoral bastards, are just surviving like everyone else. That any trip to the surface is fraught with danger. There isn't any world-saving conciet in Extinction, the world's long past that.

-This extends to the desertscape. While it's silly from an in-universe standpoint, watching it again, I actually think it really adds to the quiet desparation the entire film has. The world's a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and the convoy's running out of food, fuel, even cigarettes. People die, they don't die well, and it clearly takes its toll on the survivours. This is partly complementing the film's tone, but the desert-scape is a good example of a film's visuals reinforcing the tone and themes it's going for.

-The characters are all pretty likable, even Alice herself. Again, weirdly enough, Alice here is less owerpowered than she is in Apocalypse, despite literally being more powerful than she's ever been (arguably more than she ever will be). No-one feels useless or like a second fiddle, and there's a sense of genuine threat from the zombies, whether it be the 'regular ones' that are encountered, or the 'uber' zombies that Umbrella creates. There's a sense of grim comraderie among the characters, that these are people that have been together for a long time, and the death of everything around them has taken its toll. It's kind of weird, seeing this after watching at least six seasons of The Walking Dead, where while this is, of course, a movie, it does hit a lot of similar beats.

So, yeah. Not a great movie, nor even really a good one, but still pretty decent.
 

Dwarvenhobble

Is on the Gin
May 26, 2020
5,938
651
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The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen

(Own Copy)

Rating: 8 / 10 a beautiful mess by design.

The Film: It's a Terry Gilliam affair so vague shades of Monty Python humour with broad symbolism and heart behind the film which follows a city under siege and a performance of The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen which gets interrupted by a seeming eccentric old man who claims to be the real Baron Munchausen and demands his true story is told with the help of he actors. However when the performance is interrupted by the war and siege of the city the Baron vows to end the siege of the city by the Turks by finding his old companions and through their combined special abilities kill the Sultan behind the siege, or find some other way to end it as Baron Munchausen claims the siege and long running wars are actually due to winning an ill advised bet with the Sultan. Thus the Baron sets off with head of the actors group's daughter sneaking away with him on the adventure. The film sees the titular Baron stumble through misadventures in many fantasy settings such as the Moon and the heart of mount Etna.


Thoughts:
Very much a film that has a reason to be with a message in there about the importance of silly fantasy. Weirdly the film actually feels oddly on point and relevant today for a film made in 1988 with a central message about the importance of fun and folly rather than constant seriousness and reason. About the power of stories to inspire and distract people from the horrors of the world. An almost brilliant sort of thematic joke is the Baron keeps being reminded that the city is still under siege only to brush it off with "Oh they're fine they're in no danger" because he wants to get back to his adventure and not have to think about what's going on beyond it. So yes the films message is in part "Entertainment doesn't need to be all about modern politics and maybe it would be good if people remembered the value of escapism"

It's a tip of the hat to old adventure films about being shot to the moon and mythical monsters etc saying "So what if they're not accurate, they're fun". Honestly the film could be seen as a huge takedown to a lot of modern film discussion on youtube about how things aren't accurate or Cinema sins style stuff.

There's also the 2nd message about getting older and the wavering between embracing death and fighting it. The idea of it being the spirit that matters and the determination to carry on more than the ravages of time that ultimately stops people.

It's also a surprisingly star studded cast including the 4th ever film role and 2nd film role with a name anyone would know of for a young Uma Thurman who plays the role of the goddess Venus

It's a fun romp though if I had to criticise I'd say the film is a bit weak in terms of connective tissue with the transition between the different sections of the adventure often feeling a bit ropey and thin and not that organic more just functional to move the characters from one scenario to another rather than actually parts of the journey themselves.
 
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Johnny Novgorod

Bebop Man
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Feb 9, 2012
18,537
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Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero

More about Mr. Freeze than Batman, who is billed first but you could easily cut him out of this (and he is, for the most part). The plot centers on Mr. Freeze kidnapping Batgirl in order to perform an emergency transfusion for his wife, as they happen to share a rare blood type, with Robin doing most of the chasing and rescuing. Why pick the police commissioner's daughter out of a lineup of 17 equally suited candidates, many of whom probably wouldn't be missed before the emergency surgery? Eh. Why even bother kidnapping anybody? As usual, by the end of things all Mr. Freeze had to do was ask. The big conceit about the character (seen here, in TAS, the Arkham games) is that he'll always unnecessarily antagonize Batman et al when he really doesn't need to.

Anyway. Plot conceits aside, it's a perfectly decent "extra long episode" of TAS, albeit with the burden of having to follow up and compare to Mask of the Phantasm.
 

SilentPony

Previously known as an alleged "Feather-Rustler"
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Apr 3, 2020
12,052
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Corner of No and Where
Saw the Lost City last night. It was cute? Like I don't usually do chick flicks, but the women in my movie group wanted to see Channing Tatum shirtless, so we went. I say this to give context to my main question: Are all chick flick hunks gay?

'cause in this one, Tatum, Brad Pitt and Daniel Radcliffe are all really really gay. Not like fire island over the rainbow Will and Grace gay, but just every other line was an innuendo or metaphor for dick. Like Radcliffe is a crazy billionaire treasure hunter looking for the titular Lost City, known as the Lost City of D, because he, no joke, "wants to show the whole world the D" but because its buried beneath the sand he can only "show the tip".
And here's the thing. If those are jokes, not one person in my theater laughed. and they're all like that, almost all the lines of all the men in the movie are that blatant, always going on about little soldiers, surging volcanos and spraying lava, and throbbing this and throbbing that. And no one is laughing. There was plenty of hoots and whistles during the shirtless scenes, sure, and cheers when Sandra Bullock got to cuddle with shirtless Tatum. So clearly the intended audience is paying attention.
So I was left befuddled, trying to explain to my lady friends how incredibly gay all the characters and dialogue were, and they really didn't like that, and I'm not sure if they didn't notice, or chick flick writers truly thinks guys talk about dicks with their guy friends, 'cause we really don't.

Some of the scenes are funny, and its a cute enough little romcom even if Tatum's character comes off as the gay best friend way more than he does the straight romantic love interest. Also the side story with Da'Vine Randolph's sassy black secretary was a complete waste. It's entire payoff was to come up with a reason to have a boat in a single scene, nothing else paid off or made sense, and her being the only black character in the movie and she's the sassy woman who snaps her fingers and does "oh no you didn't" head thing just makes her scenes uncomfortable. Like this is a modern chick flick, but the tropes still feel late 90s/early 00s, as if this genre of movies hasn't aged in 20 years.

Overall 7.gay/10
 
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gorfias

Unrealistic but happy
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May 13, 2009
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Rented "Belfast" (2021) from Amazon last night.
Really worth watch. Follows mostly an 10ish year old boy in 1969 Belfast Ireland. He is supposed to sort of Kenneth Branagh, that this is semi autobiographical.
Technically, we have come such a long way super fast. The movie feels like it is supposed to be around 1955. But then they speak of the moon landing. They watch a scene from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and we know it is more recent than that.
The action of the movie deals with a brewing civil war by Protestants vs. Catholics and it all feels so senseless.
With all the seriousness of the movie, it has a ton of comedy of manners sort of humor that I found delightful.
B+

EDIT: We did watch it with subtitles on :)
 
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Drathnoxis

Became a mass murderer for your sake
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Sep 23, 2010
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Just off-screen
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Canada
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I rewatched Inside Out for the first time since I saw it in theaters. It's still good, but when did Pixar become all about making really terrible sad movies about death and leaving your childhood and accepting sadness and crap like that? Up, Toy Story 3, Inside Out, it's like their thing is making heat wrenching movies that make you cry now. It used to just be fun times about jealous toys or stopping grasshoppers from eating all the food, and nobody likeable died or got abandoned or anything.