Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[Absent]

Pietro Germi's Divorzio all'italiana (Divorce italian style). A funny, gloomy, cynical movie about honor killings in Sicily and the hypocrisy of a society where divorce was forbidden. Mastroianni (as a husband who, infatuated with a young girl, seeks a socially acceptable excuse to murder his wife) is really fun in that. And the cinematography is quite surprising, with its visual and audio incursions to that husband's fantasies. It's also amusing to see how many of these italian movies pay a direct hommage to Fellini's La Dolce Vita (here we witness a village's reaction to the release of that movie), meaning I should really watch it some day.

 

[XsjadoBlaydette]

Sputnik - (Prime, purchase)
Russian sci-fi part-horror part..umm, almost Star Trek? For the first half? But set in cold war Russia? It's pretty good in the beginning where there's an astronaut survivor of a failed space trip being studied and interrogated as the rest of the crew appear brutally deaded on landing. There's a generous measure of conversation to do with politics, personal motivations sprinkled with sparse brushings with psychology instead of action. The effects are prioritised smartly. CGI is acceptable and dare I say effective. Until that is around perhaps the halfway point, maybe 3/4ths the way through, it falls into less interesting cliché territory. And sadly fails to live up to the wonderful, unexpected promise of the first half. I'd still recommend it. So then we can all wallow in the missed opportunity together!

 

[Offworlder]

Patlabor 2

I enjoyed it, the animation and music was great, and the themes and ideas were all laid out nicely. The plot was a bit all over the place. I legit felt like there were plot points that happened that are never shown or discussed and then characters just bring it up in passing conversation. Worked out in the end but I had to rewind a few scene because I thought I'd missed something. Still wanna dive into the series now I've see the two OVA's, seems like a cool franchise.

 

[Bedinsis]

Puss in Boots 2

It's the best possible version of itself, I had fun. Since the second half is in essence one long chase scene it was a very propulsive film, so I was never bored. If I must be critical I would have to point out some niggles or say that the biggest criticism is that I've kind of grown out of this franchise so there were moments where I would feel embarrassed to watch this film in adult company. But that is very much a me problem so I can only say what I've already said: it's the best possible version of itself.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Puss in Boots 2 - 7/10

Really great children's movie, pretty solid adult movie still. I don't get the hype for it though. KC on one of the Escapist podcast shows was saying it was the best movie of the year and such. The one really odd thing about the movie is that it feels like it completely switches gear animation style during action scenes and the rest of the normal type scenes don't get near the same treatment.

M3gan - 7/10

Solid horror/thriller movie. I think it runs a nice solid 100 minutes and doesn't overstay it's welcome. The doll design (and animations) are perfectly giving off that super uncanny valley vibe. There's just enough social commentary going on in the movie to give you something to think about when it's not doing the creepy doll stuff. The only thing I really didn't care about the main character was during the doll creation aspect where she programmed it to not let anyone physically or emotionally hurt the kid. Come on, that's like #1 on the list of things you don't program into an AI, that never ends well because of obvious super logical reasons.

I kinda liked Hanks better in comedies. He’s great in The ‘Burbs too. That speech at the end is *chef’s kiss*

The Burbs is my favorite Tom Hanks movie. It's the movie I always throw on when I'm under the weather.

 

[Bartholen]

Virtuosity, 3/10

I watched this as part of a bad movie double bill with friends, the other being Johnny Mnemonic. Virtuosity is about a felon played by Denzel Washington who's assisting the LAPD in doing combat training and research on a serial killer AI called Sid 6.7, played by a pre-megafame Russell Crowe. Through science mumbo jumbo Sid manifests in the real world, and now Washington's character is the only one who can stop him... for some reason.

Cards on the table: I was pretty drunk when watching this movie, so I had a hard time following a lot of it. It's quite bad and stupid, the pacing's all over the place, it's riddled with cliché, and Washington doing his best to try to salvage the dumb as rocks script actually makes it less entertaining because he's giving it his all, preventing the movie from slipping into total camp nonsense. I was expecting this movie to be full of dated 90s CGI, but it's surprisingly restrained, and some of it actually holds up decently.

If there's any reason to watch this movie, it's Russell Crowe. He's in full on hardcore ham mode, and it's glorious to watch. "Chewing the scenery" is usually used as a metaphor, but due to plot shenanigans there's a scene his character literally chews the scenery due to having to eat some glass. Every scene with him is a total blast, and straight up meme material. It's genuinely in the territory of Nick Cage's most infamous performances.

The problem with these two conflicting styles (Washington playing it straight, Crowe doing full on camp) is that neither is really dominant, so the movie feels like flipping between two different tv channels. The result is uneven and disappointing as a good bad movie, because any time Crowe isn't on screen your eyes just glaze over from the clichéd dialogue and boring characters. There's occasional delightfully 90s technobabble to spice things up, but it's not really present enough to make the overall experience come alive. I'd still recommend it as a good bad movie, with the caveat that it's best to just shoot the shit with your (hopefully very drunk) friends when Crowe isn't on screen, and focus on his hamminess whenever he is.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

The Banshees of Inisherin
Colin Farrell has become one of my favorite actors, Brandon Gleeson is always a delight, and this is a reunion with writer/director Martin McDonogh from In Bruges, a great movie. So I expected this to be good and it is. It's all mood, dialogue, and theme, where the strange friendship between two out of the way country Irishmen is a not-so-subtle metaphor for Irish civil strife.
And it's the only movie nominated for Academy Best Picture I think that is under 2 hours so, it wins in my book.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Cube (2021)

Japanese remake of the 1997 movie. It's pretty much the same but for some added nihon idiosyncrasies that play up just how unsubtle their version is, like tinting the screen red whenever the wild card character grows a little more unhinged, some very weird hangup about age gaps and a completely new subplot involving the lead character's backstory that takes place OUTSIDE the cube, which is a massive fucking betrayal of the concept. It's bad enough that were treated to boring, tension-deflating flashbacks, but to make it even more ridiculous the rooms go so far as to 'scan' people for trauma and project it as movies.

Also power of belief moments and anime robot girls. Because Japan.

 

[mirbrownbread]

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do it
7/10
Not scary at all, though a good movie nonetheless

 

[Xprimentyl]

Shotgun Wedding: Good / Great

A couple has the "perfect" wedding planned at a Philippines resort island. The family's don't mesh, the bride's ex shows up unexpectedly, oh, and a band of pirates show up which really throws a kinks in things...

Surprisingly good; a decent mix of romance, drama, action, and a shit ton of comedy. I had fun.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★★ review of Big Hero 6 (2014)

This review may contain spoilers. Visit the page to bypass this warning and read the review.

letterboxd.com

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Shotgun Wedding: Good / Great

A couple has the "perfect" wedding planned at a Philippines resort island. The family's don't mesh, the bride's ex shows up unexpectedly, oh, and a band of pirates show up which really throws a kinks in things...

Surprisingly good; a decent mix of romance, drama, action, and a shit ton of comedy. I had fun.

Did it look like they actually shot it over here?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Joe Kidd

Clint Eastwood Western directed by John Sturges. A very strange movie for having such a thin plot. A posse of Mexican raiders attempts to reclaim some land (by torching some documents in court), and then a posse of elites goes after them. Clint gets hired by the lead elite (Robert Duvall!) to track the Mexicans. Clint rejects him at first, then joins in after it becomes personal (in the flimsiest way possible) and then... he flips sides again, for no clear reason? At one point of the movie Clint and Duvall start doing things with no clear motivation and to no obvious benefit. I couldn't tell if it was a script issue or an editing issue. In any case apparently Clint hated working with Sturges and this became the last Western he ever made under a director other than himself.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Did it look like they actually shot it over here?

According to Wikipedia, it was shot in the Dominican Republic.

 

[Bartholen]

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, 8/10.

Seeing as Martin McDonagh's latest is up for a zillion Oscars, I figured visiting his previous awards darling (a measly seven nominations compared to Banshees of Inisherin's nine) would be timely. I'd decided to watch this before I even knew Banshees existed, but it's certainly a nice bit of serendipitous timing.

And yeah, it's pretty fucking great. Acting, script, cinematography are all great, the characters are interesting and nuanced and the story takes twists and turns. It's pretty sad and depressing a lot of the time, but every now and then there's a hilarious bit of dialogue that's so caustic and profane that disbelieving laughter is the only reaction, or so completely unfitting for the situation that it's almost Monty Python -esque. Having just watched Fargo recently it was fun to see Frances McDormand play pretty much the polar opposite of Marge Gunderson just effortlessly. God, she's such a treasure for cinema.

It's not necessarily anything revolutionary, but it's certainly got a lot more teeth than your typical Oscar darling. Seeing as it came out in 2017 and attitudes and perceptions around american police have only gotten worse and worse since, it's a bit hard for me to say if it's aged poorly or amazingly. I can see why some people took umbrage with Sam Rockwell's character at the time, his turnaround does feel rather quick, but IMO it stayed within the boundaries of reason. I really enjoyed the ending. The movie felt like it was about to wrap up, but at the last second it throws in one last curveball, and leaves on a very interesting, ambiguous note.

 

[Piscian]

I rewatched Dark City in 4K the other night.

Man I had completely forgotten how much this movie is a template for Matrix. Literally the story is identical except aliens instead of robots and even when you see the aliens they are identical to the octopi robots in Matrix. That said Dark City is leans hard on the some of it's parts. The dialog is pretty silly and Jennifer Connelly positively atrocious and I don't really know why. I kinda wonder if they told her to "act" like her memory has been wiped so many times she's practically a living doll. Maybe these characters are supposed to be "off".

The other problem is that's very superficial. Dark City doesn't leave you anything to chew on, philosophically speaking. The movie is "fun" rather than interesting. It's somewhere inbetween 1984 and Equilibrium. Not as silly as as the later, but not as thought provoking as the former. I imagine if Dark City were made in 2022 it would be an hour longer giving these characters time to develop. Maybe develop the aliens more.

8/10 definitely defends its status as a cult classic, but 20+ years later the cracks start to show a little.

 

[BrawlMan]

Maybe these characters are supposed to be "off".

Yes. That was the intention. You did watch the Director's Cut, right?

The other problem is that's very superficial. Dark City doesn't leave you anything to chew on, philosophically speaking.

Speak for yourself. So what? It's still a damn good movie. Not everything has to be philosophical. The movie still took risks and did his own thing well.

I imagine if Dark City were made in 2022 it would be an hour longer giving these characters time to develop. Maybe develop the aliens more.

That would be a little nice.

8/10 definitely defends its status as a cult classic, but 20+ years later the cracks start to show a little.

Sleep now.

 

[Piscian]

Yes. That was the intention. You did watch the Director's Cut, right?


Speak for yourself. So what? It's still a damn good movie. Not everything has to be philosophical. The movie still took risks and did his own thing well.



That would be a little nice.


Sleep now.

No actually, I just looked I did not watch the directors cut.

Edit: Now Im not sure. My copy doesnt say directors cut, but I recognize some of the scenes. idk.

 

[BrawlMan]

No actually, I just looked I did not watch the directors cut.

Edit: Now Im not sure. My copy doesnt say directors cut, but I recognize some of the scenes. idk.

I know you say you have the 4K dvd. Quick question: did the intro have an opening narration? If it did, then you have the theatrical version. That's actually the bad version of the movie. You can blame the dumb executives at New Line Cinema If you got the director's cut version, the opening narration is removed. The director's cut also add back in a few deleted scenes to give the story a bit more depth.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Man I had completely forgotten how much this movie is a template for Matrix.

IIRC, some of the same props or sets were used in both movies, as they were both filmed in Sydney. Also, Bruce Spence was in both franchises: