Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[XsjadoBlaydette]

X - (Prime, bought)
Been interested in seeing how this 70s throwback turned out, and while theys does mostly well at everything it intends to, there is still a vague sense of disappointment after watching for some odd reasons. Will attempt to fish the shallow ones out first and work on from there. First, the deaths are fairly standard and somewhat predictable for this genre, though effective when they occur, an underlying desire to be surprised is sadly now left in an anti-climatic stasis.

Second, why do I get the distinct impression the creator of this film is sharing a deep phobia of old people? Gerontophobia? A noticeable chunk of the horror seems to be directly trying to poke that particular area of phobias for it's, umm, horror. Yeah I know they haven't been a boom for our whole voting thing, but this isn't interested in their political beliefs, instead presenting the antagonist old couple with imagery and behaviour more akin to sexually repressed zombies (resident evil 4 ones, if a narrowing down of their implied intelligence is needed) while playing up how gross some ppl tend to think growing old is. It's a small niggle, I know, but it just felt kinda less smart or even classy for doing so in that way. Overall, I expected a plain, simple plot, and it was even simpler than those expectations. It is well crafted nonetheless, just no meat or surprises.

 

[Gordon_4]

Titanic 1997 on Netflix.

Dunno why I ended up watching this tonight but holy moly this is a fantastic movie. A+

To the kids that haven't seen this, watch it.

The major issue I have with the movie is that it did First Officer Murdoch SUPER dirty. Which was weird considering how much anal retentive research Cameron put into everything else and that his fate was as reasonably established as could be given the circumstances of the night.

 

[BrawlMan]

The major issue I have with the movie is that it did First Officer Murdoch SUPER dirty. Which was weird considering how much anal retentive research Cameron put into everything else and that his fate was as reasonably established as could be given the circumstances of the night.

Titanic is the biggest waste of 3 hours in my entire life!

 

[Gordon_4]

Titanic is the biggest waste of 3 hours in my entire life!

Actually my misgivings about Murdoch’s (literal) on screen character assassination, I think Titanic is a great film. Not one you watch casually by any means; it’s like Saving Private Ryan or Ten Commandments. One must be in a certain mood and headspace.

 

[BrawlMan]

I think Titanic is a great film.

I don't.

Saving Private Ryan or Ten Commandments

I rather watch one of those. More so Saving Private Ryan.

 

[gorfias]

The Terminator
Still the best. I mean yeah sure if we could tinker with the handful of dodgy special effects just a little bit it would be perfection. Also the Nike ad is just so damn tasteless it becomes funny upon reminder later. Anyway, I appreciate the slow reveal of 101's true nature. Then again I doubt many have seen the movie without knowing Arnie is a machine in it.

I'm old. I saw this in the theater with my Air Force buds when it first came out. My buddy called it, saying, "I'll be back" repeatedly, loving that line.

$6 million budget. So much creativity. There's a scene where they smash the terminator with a car against a wall. As the car backs up after hitting him, a rifle rests on the front bumper and falls off as the car backs away, giving one a sense of the power of the impact. That was planned. They wanted it to hit the audience that way and it works.

I understand they initially wanted Lance Henrickson to play the Terminator (T800?) as an infiltrator unit, it should want to look unremarkable. I wouldn't call Arney unremarkable looking.
EDIT:

What is the Terminator's model number in Terminator 3?

• In Terminator 3, the Terminator refers to itself as a "T-101", which could be an abbreviation of its model number. This also occurs throughout the T2 novels. In Terminator Salvation, the T2 Extreme Edition DVD, and the Terminator 2 video game he is referred to as an 800 series and a T-800.

The Terminator

www.boxofficemojo.com

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The Man with the Golden Gun

The second Moore movie, way better than Live and Let Die. I like Christopher Lee a lot as Scaramanga. The lead villain is for once a physical match for Bond and the intro sequence in which he engages in a cat and mouse fight to the death for training/sport reminded me of From Russia with Love. Like that movie this one is a low-stakes affair: Bond is once more merely after a MacGuffin, and he's actively going after Scaramanga for it instead of simply reacting to a larger global-scale threat. Seems more action-driven than usual, and a welcome change of pace from the usual rigmarole of casually stumbling into pieces of the plot.

Scaramanga's a great villain too. The intro alone lets you put together who the character is in a great sequence of show-don't-tell. He's a sniper assassin who charges one million per bullet (and never misses) and stays in shape by lounging in a private island and having his minions regularly ambush him with prospective killers, neither of whom ever quite gets to collect. He's so good he lets his victims know he's gonna come after them and still nobody has ever seen the dude.

(Which begs the question how on Earth do they have confirmed fingerprints from this dude but not one single photograph. Same thing annoyed me in Diamonds are Forever - James poses as a renown smuggler and convinces his contact by faking his fingerprints and letting his contact verify them in a machine conveniently set up in the other room. Good thing she didn't just have a picture of the real dude instead).

I'm still not sold on Moore as Bond. I don't dislike him but the character is so different it might as well be another 00. He smacks poor Maud Adams around, which surprised me - I would've thought the woman smacking was over and done with Connery and Lazenby. Maybe Dalton broke the trend? Can't wait to find out. Britt Ekland is a hottie (can't believe how much Margot Robbie looks like her) and more involved in the plot than the usual Bond girl, on top of having a fun (if a bit cruel) Girl Friday dynamic with Bond. And lastly I don't know what the hell they were thinking bringing back the bumbling Louisiana sheriff from Live and Let Die as a recurring comic relief. He couldn't be more annoying and out of place in this.

 

[gorfias]

The Man with the Golden Gun

The second Moore movie, way better than Live and Let Die. I like Christopher Lee a lot as Scaramanga. The lead villain is for once a physical match for Bond and the intro sequence in which he engages in a cat and mouse fight to the death for training/sport reminded me of From Russia with Love. Like that movie this one is a low-stakes affair: Bond is once more merely after a MacGuffin, and he's actively going after Scaramanga for it instead of simply reacting to a larger global-scale threat. Seems more action-driven than usual, and a welcome change of pace from the usual rigmarole of casually stumbling into pieces of the plot.

Scaramanga's a great villain too. The intro alone lets you put together who the character is in a great sequence of show-don't-tell. He's a sniper assassin who charges one million per bullet (and never misses) and stays in shape by lounging in a private island and having his minions regularly ambush him with prospective killers, neither of whom ever quite gets to collect. He's so good he lets his victims know he's gonna come after them and still nobody has ever seen the dude.

(Which begs the question how on Earth do they have confirmed fingerprints from this dude but not one single photograph. Same thing annoyed me in Diamonds are Forever - James poses as a renown smuggler and convinces his contact by faking his fingerprints and letting his contact verify them in a machine conveniently set up in the other room. Good thing she didn't just have a picture of the real dude instead).

I'm still not sold on Moore as Bond. I don't dislike him but the character is so different it might as well be another 00. He smacks poor Maud Adams around, which surprised me - I would've thought the woman smacking was over and done with Connery and Lazenby. Maybe Dalton broke the trend? Can't wait to find out. Britt Ekland is a hottie (can't believe how much Margot Robbie looks like her) and more involved in the plot than the usual Bond girl, on top of having a fun (if a bit cruel) Girl Friday dynamic with Bond. And lastly I don't know what the hell they were thinking bringing back the bumbling Louisiana sheriff from Live and Let Die as a recurring comic relief. He couldn't be more annoying and out of place in this.

To this day, the cork screw bridge jump is considered the go to stunt to admire.

Just watched on HBO-Max 300: Rise of an Empire.


8/10. Really good movie so overshadowed by the superior 300, people forget about this truly wonderful follow up.

Great action, visuals and sound, characterizations. Sadly, I do read they get a lot wrong historically. Like, 300 was a factual documentary?

 

[Dalisclock]

To this day, the cork screw bridge jump is considered the go to stunt to admire.

Just watched on HBO-Max 300: Rise of an Empire.


8/10. Really good movie so overshadowed by the superior 300, people forget about this truly wonderful follow up.

Great action, visuals and sound, characterizations. Sadly, I do read they get a lot wrong historically. Like, 300 was a factual documentary?

I see the 300 movies as the larger then life take on real events. I can't remember if Rise of an Empire didi it but 300 was pretty much being told just before a big battle to get the troops pumped up and in that light, it works perfectly. And I have no doubt if the Spartans could have made pro-spartan propaganda films, they probably would have been a lot like 300 where Spartans Rule and everyone else Drools.

And yes, I do like the movies because of how ridiculous they are.

 

[Hawki]

EDIT:

What is the Terminator's model number in Terminator 3?

• In Terminator 3, the Terminator refers to itself as a "T-101", which could be an abbreviation of its model number. This also occurs throughout the T2 novels. In Terminator Salvation, the T2 Extreme Edition DVD, and the Terminator 2 video game he is referred to as an 800 series and a T-800.

So, to be clear, T-101 is the model number (as in, phenotype), while T-800 is the type of Terminator. So, for instance, in every Terminator film bar T3, Arnie is playing a T-800 (whereas in T3 he's a T-850), but all of them are Model 101.

 

[Samtemdo8]

Shaun of the Dead, the reason I feel this is the best Zombie flick of all time is the main characters themselves. Because of all the characters in these kinds of movies, Shaun and his friends are the most down to earth/relatable/realistic bunch

Like our survivors aren't former military folks or police folks like a Chris Redfield or Leon Kennedy.

Shaun's just a guy working at a TV electronic store with relationship problems.

 

[thebobmaster]

The Man with the Golden Gun

The second Moore movie, way better than Live and Let Die. I like Christopher Lee a lot as Scaramanga. The lead villain is for once a physical match for Bond and the intro sequence in which he engages in a cat and mouse fight to the death for training/sport reminded me of From Russia with Love. Like that movie this one is a low-stakes affair: Bond is once more merely after a MacGuffin, and he's actively going after Scaramanga for it instead of simply reacting to a larger global-scale threat. Seems more action-driven than usual, and a welcome change of pace from the usual rigmarole of casually stumbling into pieces of the plot.

Scaramanga's a great villain too. The intro alone lets you put together who the character is in a great sequence of show-don't-tell. He's a sniper assassin who charges one million per bullet (and never misses) and stays in shape by lounging in a private island and having his minions regularly ambush him with prospective killers, neither of whom ever quite gets to collect. He's so good he lets his victims know he's gonna come after them and still nobody has ever seen the dude.

(Which begs the question how on Earth do they have confirmed fingerprints from this dude but not one single photograph. Same thing annoyed me in Diamonds are Forever - James poses as a renown smuggler and convinces his contact by faking his fingerprints and letting his contact verify them in a machine conveniently set up in the other room. Good thing she didn't just have a picture of the real dude instead).

I'm still not sold on Moore as Bond. I don't dislike him but the character is so different it might as well be another 00. He smacks poor Maud Adams around, which surprised me - I would've thought the woman smacking was over and done with Connery and Lazenby. Maybe Dalton broke the trend? Can't wait to find out. Britt Ekland is a hottie (can't believe how much Margot Robbie looks like her) and more involved in the plot than the usual Bond girl, on top of having a fun (if a bit cruel) Girl Friday dynamic with Bond. And lastly I don't know what the hell they were thinking bringing back the bumbling Louisiana sheriff from Live and Let Die as a recurring comic relief. He couldn't be more annoying and out of place in this.

Moore's smacking around of Maud Adams was actually part of an attempt to make Moore closer to Connery's Bond, which didn't really work. You could tell how uncomfortable Moore was with doing such things, and they wisely drop it from this point on. You're also a lot kinder to Goodknight (Ekland's character) than I am, where I think she is one of the worst Bond girls, in part because of how involved she is in the plot, and how they play her up as an MI6 agent only for her to get kidnapped because she tried to bug Scaramanga's trunk in the open in broad daylight, and then nearly kills Bond by setting off the Solex Agitator with her ass, AND she is the reason that his lair gets blown to smithereens. Also, that final fight scene on the ship is one of the most (possibly) unintentionally hilarious things I've seen in any Bond movie.

All that said, I can't hate this movie, because Sir Christopher Lee is so good as the main villain. I love his speech comparing himself to Bond, as well as Bond's response to it.

 

[XsjadoBlaydette]

Turbo Kid - (Prime, purchase)
Canadian throw back about a 1997 "future apocalypse" where everyone rides around on 80s bicycles collecting colourful 80s toys while brutally murdering each other. There's distinct Far Cry Blood Dragon vibes as it follows a kid who is really into a comic book hero "Turbo Kid," then stumbles across perhaps the most frightening version of a "manic pixie dream girl" ever. Oh and Micheal Ironside is the big bad, it's been so long since hearing his voice last. It's an odd balance of sincere yet tongue-in-cheek, perhaps the best kind of balance. The budget is low, the passion is high, and the gore is gleeful. This was made before the Stranger Things series kicked 80s nostalgia into a cynical mainstream commodity, though it's likely not the first, it still feels a less cynical take with its throwbacks in comparison to where we are now within commodified nostalgia bait.

 

[Thaluikhain]

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (2012)

Based on a 1886 novel that outsold the first Sherlock Holmes novel apparently.

Bit long, and full of boring rich people who don't follow their own rules, but they put some work into getting the setting right.

 

[Hawki]

Top Gun (5/10)

So for reasons I'm sure are entirely coincidental, Top Gun aired on TV a few nights ago. Having seen Maverick, gave it a watch. As you can tell, I didn't think much of it.

Let's be clear - this is a stupid movie. The characters are stock, the dialogue is banal, the themes are basic, the music for non-action scenes is wallpaper music (to borrow the term), the plot is basic to the point of almost non-existence, even the directing is extremely simple. If not for a key factor, this would easily slip into "bad" territory.

Still, this is Top Gun, and yeah, when the fighters are actually, um, top gunning, it's actually pretty neat. I knew the outcome ahead of time, but credit where it's due, any time a fighter is in the air, even in training sequences, this movie is actually pretty neat. Even all these years later, watching the final dogfight at the end had me in rapt attention. It's in these moments that the film really comes together, but the problem is that anytime the film isn't showing aerial combat, it's utterly banal.

So, yeah. Not much of a fan. If I'm comparing this to Maverick, Maverick's a better film on every level. Top Gun may have done it first, but Maverick did it better, not just in its action, but also in the quality of its writing, directing, etc. The key difference is that Maverick could be engaging outside the cockpit (not always, but a lot of the time), while Top Gun fails to be so.

Also, random thoughts:

-I've heard Top Gun be accused of propaganda, but TBH, I don't think that's really the case. If anything, Maverick is more propagandistic, in that its core plot is a first strike against a "rogue state's" uranium site, never once questioning the ethics of such an action. Top Gun is at least fairly honest in that "the enemy" is the USSR (never named, true, but one can figure it out), the rules of engagement are followed, and at the end, the Ruskies seem to be the aggressors.

-So apparently recruitment for the Navy surged after this film was released. I can't help but wonder how many applicants actually ended up flying planes, and how many ended up as deckhands. 0_0

-Holy shit, this film has got "the gays." I don't mean that in a bad way, I'm actually kind of surprised that it could get away with so many scenes of athletic men wearing towls in locker rooms or playing beach volleyball. Even if you don't ship Maverick and Iceman and just see them as buddies, what chemistry they have is still better than Maverick and Charlie (who's just your stock romantic interest).

 

[XsjadoBlaydette]

Everything Everywhere All At Once - (Home rental)
Shouldn't have watched this before the Multiverse of Madness to be fair, but guess which one came to streaming first? It'll only be downhill from here.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Everything Everywhere All At Once - (Home rental)
Shouldn't have watched this before the Multiverse of Madness to be fair, but guess which one came to streaming first? It'll only be downhill from here.

What'd you think of the movie though?

 

[Xprimentyl]

What'd you think of the movie though?

Seeing as they said "it'll only be downhill from here," I'd say it sounds like a endorsement.

 

[Bartholen]

Everything Everywhere All at Once again, still 9/10

Not as enthralling on a second watch since you know where it's going, but you end up appreciating things you miss on the first watch. Like how the entire multiverse aspect is foreshadowed by the IRS clerk saying that Evelyn's a teacher, a chef, a singing coach etc. Or how you can see the raccoon tail from under the other chef's hat, but on the first time you assume it's his hair. The acting is also much more memorable when you can fully focus on it, because so much is conveyed through performances alone. And there's so many themes to chew on: depression, alienation, nihilism, loneliness, family, "what could have been" and so on. I think this will be remembered as one of the 2020's cult classics.

If there's a criticism, it's that the amount of explanation the movie has to do is definitely felt more on the second watch. It's mostly fit nicely together with the plot so that the exposition is also furthering the story, but it does slip into Nolan-esque technical manual at times.

 

[XsjadoBlaydette]

What'd you think of the movie though?

Yeah I did enjoy it, is just a habit I have of not being very clear at times when I don't know what else to say that hasn't already been said. Just a bit concerned it may now be trickier to enjoy Multiverse of Madness once it's available though.