Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[Piscian]

Memento

A long enough time has passed that I was able to rewatch this only kind of remembering the high notes. Like I generally remember him being betrayed by pretty much everyone, but none of the fine details. Regardless, it stands the test of time. Still amazing film. There's a few scant parts where dialog is written in such a way as to intentionally keep things vague so that the plotting works, but these are easily masked by the fact that everyone he talks to has an agenda. I also think the reveal rides the line between a realistic conversation and exposition pretty hard. I do appreciate that the supposed antagonist, Teddy, is never clearly an antagonist. There's many moments of genuine empathy for Lenard. I think when his genuine attempts to help Lenard failed before the start of the story he chooses to abuse lenard for his own benefit, while telling himself that he's still helping him even if he's just enabling him at the start of the film. I imagine he thought he'd be smart of enough talk Lenny into leaving, but he's missing too many facts and he got lazy.

I think Momento might be the greatest thesis on why we should take away all of Chistopher Nolans money. Memento is just as good, and essentially the same story as Tenet, but without all the noise and thunder. If Momento is Terminator and Inception is Terminator 2, then Tenet is Avatar.

In fact I vote we take away all of Christopher Nolan and James Cameron's money and make them put out a couple films with sub-60million dollar budgets. Imagine the bangers they'd be forced to put out.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Women Talking

I really wanted to like this one, but I did not.
Warning: politics, I guess.

The story is explicitly, blatantly a political point. The background is that there are these Mennonite communities in Boliva, people descendent from Germany and Holland and Canada (it's a pretty fascinating history of how/why all that happened). Mennonites are super-insular religious, like maybe you heard of Amish which are also a subsect.
IRL, in 2009, a bunch of the community men were drugging and raping and beating the women and were arrested and tried. A writer wrote a fiction novel that imagined a response where the women met and argued and discussed various responses and decided to leave. The book and consequently the film explicitly states itself as "an act of female imagination." So yeah, this is pure feminism 101 stuff here. Now obviously that's gonna turn off a lot of people but the cast is great and run time under 2 hours and I'm not averse to art as political discourse.

Now as you expect the acting was great, the dialogue was written well in terms of craft, and the direction was on point, subtle enough to stay out of the way of the characters. It used enough very brief flashbacks to convey the weight behind the dialogue, and as the title warns, it is all dialogue.

My problem with the movie is... well, it's whole premise. It's an imagined "response" to a real event. It is basically the writer wishing that the victims of abuse acted in a badass way which feels a little.. insulting? exploitive?.. to the real actual women to whom this happened that are probably mostly alive (I mean this only happened 13 years ago). So I'm more interested in the real life than this "imagination."

And the background is so wild and weird, I would have never appreciated its context without looking it up on the internet.
My last complaint is that Frances McDormant is the executive producer and is advertised as starring in it but she is in like two scenes just looking forlorn, doesn't do anything.

I really wanted to like it because I was hoping it would go against what it looks alike and also because it's the least-famous Oscar nominee... but alas, no, if a movie called "women talking" sounds boring and lame and preachy, it's even worse than you imagine, unfortunately.

 

[FakeSympathy]

HBO Max The Last of Us

I have been learning to watch shows from start to finish again. The last time I did it was with Walking Dead, just before the season where Negan was introduced. It has always came down to not wanting to spend hours binge watching shows in a one go, and not wanting to wait another week for the next episode to drop.

I guess me loving the first TLOU game really helped, because I managed to watch the first season from beginning to the end whenever the episode came out.

If you saw my thread, then you probably saw my overall thoughts about season 1; It's a really solid live-action adaptation. For years, we got one shitty adaptations after another, mostly due to the producers inability to understand the source material, the studios greed to monetize the crap out of the said source material, or god-forbid omit the original work to insert their political agendas (I'm looking at you, Lauren!). And I think we are finally getting out of that curse.

Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey's performances were superb. They were on point about who Joel and Ellie are. The atmosphere and set designs were done really great. I guess that's one credit I can give Neil Druckmann; He knew what he was doing, as transitioning something in-game to live-action can be tricky.

There were some strange writing choices though. Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson's appearances didn't really seem to add much to the story. I guess it was for fan service, but they were given a bit too much screen time for how much stuff they add. I mean Laura Baily cameoed in one of the last scenes. Why couldn't that been done for Troy and Ashley?

The fact that they had major fights against humans only twice in the show was kinda strange as well. I guess it would've been too repetitive if every encounter from the game was re-enacted, but you're seriously telling me they were in such situation twice?

 

[Absent]

My problem with the movie is... well, it's whole premise. It's an imagined "response" to a real event. It is basically the writer wishing that the victims of abuse acted in a badass way which feels a little.. insulting? exploitive?.. to the real actual women to whom this happened that are probably mostly alive (I mean this only happened 13 years ago). So I'm more interested in the real life than this "imagination."

Same issue with Tarantino ?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Casualties of War (1989)

Really good. Based on a true story and far as I can check everything in it actually happened (if not more). It's about a bunch of twitchy Vietnam grunts who decide to fuck off and kidnap a girl, rape her and eventually kill her. They're led by Sean Penn, dangerously-on-edge after his buddy gets killed. By incredible happenstance the rest of the squad is a real who's who. John C. Reilly as the simpleton. Don Harvey as the psycho wild card. John Leguizamo as a coward and a flake. Michael J. Fox as the lone moral dude, who is dangerously at odds with the rest of the squad because he doesn't go along with the rape (although can't do much to stop it either).

Fox opens and closes the movie while riding a train (Jacob's Ladder!), providing a framing device that really didn't have to be there and only serves to cobble a happy ending out of nowhere. Well, happy is a stretch. It's more about ending on a more (kinda phony) upbeat note that altering anything about the story. Didn't ruin the movie for me but the story would be stronger without it.

It's Brian De Palma so there're tricky composite shots, scenes where a dozen different things are about to collide, moments of sudden violence and a whole bunch of nervous POV tracking shots, including the archetypal Hithcockian bomb-under-the-table sequence. Good score from Morricone to boot.

The Son (2022)

Sorta kinda related to The Father, from the same director/playwright. The Father was about a man (Anthony Hopkins) suffering from dementia, and the movie shared his confused perception of reality by mixing around characters, actors, names, timelines, etc. The Son is ostensibly about the title character, a depressed kid that self-harms and toys with suicidal ideation, but instead the movie assumes the perspective of the dad - played by Hugh Jackman. This feels like a huge miss. The "son" himself remains a mystery for the whole movie because we never know more about him than his dad does, or thinks he does. So as a character study it's kind of oblique and frustrating. Beautiful Boy with Paul Atreides and Michael Scott provided a more rounded insight on the fractured father-son bond, although I guess the drug angle somehow makes it "easier" to communicate. That dude had a clear drug problem. I don't know what the fuck this kid has, and neither does he.

The performances are all really good. Jackman as the lame insecure dad who dances goofily to Tom Jones (in an unintentionally hilarious moment, the music fades to Radiohead while the kid watches all sad like). Laura Dern as the fretful overbearing mom. Vanessa Kirby as the hot young no-nonsense stepmom. Hopkins in his one scene as Jackman's dad, who lovingly tells him to get the fuck over his daddy issues at 50. And the kid himself is really good, even if half the time I was thinking of Peter Griffin's "I have a bad feeling about Suicidey".

So here's my main problem with the movie, and the reason I seriously considered walking out.

Spoiler

The kid tries offing himself and winds up at a psych ward. About a week later mom and dad go visit and he pleas, super manipulatively, that he's ready to go home (I hate it here blah blah). The doctor says No, repeatedly. He's not well. He's going to try it again. But mom and dad give in (they get guilt tripped with abandonment bs) and take the kid home, where he makes them tea, then promptly shoots himself. I was like, Well yeah. What kind of parent checks out a suicidal kid from a psych ward against every doctor's orders not one week after an attempt, following several months of self-harm? So what if he hates it there? That's junkie detox talk. And at no point did I believe either parent would be so deluded as to not realize it.

To top it off, we get a cheesy epilogue set a few years afterwards where the son (he's alive) visits dad, perfectly well adjusted, having secretly authored a memoir ("Death Can Wait", and dedicated to dad too - not mom, screw mom), about to move in with his girl... Ah sike it was Jackman hallucinating a sappy What If, he really did die, The End. That's some low blow.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Women Talking

I really wanted to like this one, but I did not.
Warning: politics, I guess.

The story is explicitly, blatantly a political point. The background is that there are these Mennonite communities in Boliva, people descendent from Germany and Holland and Canada (it's a pretty fascinating history of how/why all that happened). Mennonites are super-insular religious, like maybe you heard of Amish which are also a subsect.
IRL, in 2009, a bunch of the community men were drugging and raping and beating the women and were arrested and tried. A writer wrote a fiction novel that imagined a response where the women met and argued and discussed various responses and decided to leave. The book and consequently the film explicitly states itself as "an act of female imagination." So yeah, this is pure feminism 101 stuff here. Now obviously that's gonna turn off a lot of people but the cast is great and run time under 2 hours and I'm not averse to art as political discourse.

Now as you expect the acting was great, the dialogue was written well in terms of craft, and the direction was on point, subtle enough to stay out of the way of the characters. It used enough very brief flashbacks to convey the weight behind the dialogue, and as the title warns, it is all dialogue.

My problem with the movie is... well, it's whole premise. It's an imagined "response" to a real event. It is basically the writer wishing that the victims of abuse acted in a badass way which feels a little.. insulting? exploitive?.. to the real actual women to whom this happened that are probably mostly alive (I mean this only happened 13 years ago). So I'm more interested in the real life than this "imagination."

And the background is so wild and weird, I would have never appreciated its context without looking it up on the internet.
My last complaint is that Frances McDormant is the executive producer and is advertised as starring in it but she is in like two scenes just looking forlorn, doesn't do anything.

I really wanted to like it because I was hoping it would go against what it looks alike and also because it's the least-famous Oscar nominee... but alas, no, if a movie called "women talking" sounds boring and lame and preachy, it's even worse than you imagine, unfortunately.

I have the same issue with the end of Inglorious Bastards, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The re-imagining of history and completely changing the outcome always just feels really disrespectful to the real events that happened. I don't so much mind the over-dramatization of events in order to tell a good story, but completely rewriting the events rather than just making them more action-packed really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Completely rejecting reality to create a feel-good story with a happy ending downplays the real and tragic events and cheapens them.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Casualties of War (1989)

Really good. Based on a true story and far as I can check everything in it actually happened (if not more). It's about a bunch of twitchy Vietnam grunts who decide to fuck off and kidnap a girl, rape her and eventually kill her. They're led by Sean Penn, dangerously-on-edge after his buddy gets killed. By incredible happenstance the rest of the squad is a real who's who. John C. Reilly as the simpleton. Don Harvey as the psycho wild card. John Leguizamo as a coward and a flake. Michael J. Fox as the lone moral dude, who is dangerously at odds with the rest of the squad because he doesn't go along with the rape (although can't do much to stop it either).

Fox opens and closes the movie while riding a train (Jacob's Ladder!), providing a framing device that really didn't have to be there and only serves to cobble a happy ending out of nowhere. Well, happy is a stretch. It's more about ending on a more (kinda phony) upbeat note that altering anything about the story. Didn't ruin the movie for me but the story would be stronger without it.

It's Brian De Palma so there're tricky composite shots, scenes where a dozen different things are about to collide, moments of sudden violence and a whole bunch of nervous POV tracking shots, including the archetypal Hithcockian bomb-under-the-table sequence. Good score from Morricone to boot.

Oh, saw that years ago, quite decent, IIRC, though a bit forgettable because so many Vietnam war movies seem much the same.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Women Talking

My problem with the movie is... well, it's whole premise. It's an imagined "response" to a real event. It is basically the writer wishing that the victims of abuse acted in a badass way which feels a little.. insulting? exploitive?.. to the real actual women to whom this happened that are probably mostly alive (I mean this only happened 13 years ago). So I'm more interested in the real life than this "imagination."

I have the same issue with the end of Inglorious Bastards, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The re-imagining of history and completely changing the outcome always just feels really disrespectful to the real events that happened. I don't so much mind the over-dramatization of events in order to tell a good story, but completely rewriting the events rather than just making them more action-packed really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Completely rejecting reality to create a feel-good story with a happy ending downplays the real and tragic events and cheapens them.

I've already mentioned it a while ago, but I have the same problem with 1997's Titanic. Not that it claimed to be a documentary, but the Jack and Rose fictional love story completely overshadows the actual tragedy of over 1,500 people who actually died, and dragged the runtime unnecessarily to over 3 hours. The gravity of the situation already exists without adding romantic drama to it, and arguably could have been better portrayed in half the time, and memorialized actual victims. But no; it will forever be a love story, the 1,500 "other" bodies floating around Jack serving as little more than scenery.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I've already mentioned it a while ago, but I have the same problem with 1997's Titanic. Not that it claimed to be a documentary, but the Jack and Rose fictional love story completely overshadows the actual tragedy of over 1,500 people who actually died, and dragged the runtime unnecessarily to over 3 hours. The gravity of the situation already exists without adding romantic drama to it, and arguably could have been better portrayed in half the time, and memorialized actual victims. But no; it will forever be a love story, the 1,500 "other" bodies floating around Jack serving as little more than scenery.

Apparently there was a passenger that died that had a similar name to Leonardo DiCaprio's character, and lots of fans of the film have stolen dirt from the grave, leaving that one looking weird and unkempt.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Apparently there was a passenger that died that had a similar name to Leonardo DiCaprio's character, and lots of fans of the film have stolen dirt from the grave, leaving that one looking weird and unkempt.

Which only goes to show how stupid people are and how grossly underserved the tragedy of the actual sinking of the Titanic was done by that film.

 

[Kyrian007]

I've already mentioned it a while ago, but I have the same problem with 1997's Titanic. Not that it claimed to be a documentary, but the Jack and Rose fictional love story completely overshadows the actual tragedy of over 1,500 people who actually died, and dragged the runtime unnecessarily to over 3 hours. The gravity of the situation already exists without adding romantic drama to it, and arguably could have been better portrayed in half the time, and memorialized actual victims. But no; it will forever be a love story, the 1,500 "other" bodies floating around Jack serving as little more than scenery.

Ditto but with 300 for me. There was a concerted effort to lionize Spartan society in regards to Thermopylae and the Greco-Persian Wars. Frank Miller fell bigtime for this heavily biased look at history, and Zach Snyder was right behind him. The efforts were more looking to demonize anything Persian as "non-western" as opposed to Grecian "western society." There's some line about "free men" fighting a "slave army." Which is funny considering slavery had been outlawed in the Persian Empire even before Xerces took over and their soldiers were paid mercenaries, while around 3/4 of the Spartan population were slaves. There was a jab at Athenians about pedophilia, even though in reality Spartans practiced more or less institutional pedophilia. Plus, it wasn't too long after Thermopylae that Sparta would basically be fighting on the same side with the Achaemenid Persians against Athens. It really isn't a good idea to assign "good guys" and "bad guys" when looking at nonfictional history. But it is fairly clear that Spartan society was particularly vile, while the Persians were about as "free" a society as existed by the standards of the day.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Ditto but with 300 for me. There was a concerted effort to lionize Spartan society in regards to Thermopylae and the Greco-Persian Wars. Frank Miller fell bigtime for this heavily biased look at history, and Zach Snyder was right behind him. The efforts were more looking to demonize anything Persian as "non-western" as opposed to Grecian "western society." There's some line about "free men" fighting a "slave army." Which is funny considering slavery had been outlawed in the Persian Empire even before Xerces took over and their soldiers were paid mercenaries, while around 3/4 of the Spartan population were slaves. There was a jab at Athenians about pedophilia, even though in reality Spartans practiced more or less institutional pedophilia. Plus, it wasn't too long after Thermopylae that Sparta would basically be fighting on the same side with the Achaemenid Persians against Athens. It really isn't a good idea to assign "good guys" and "bad guys" when looking at nonfictional history. But it is fairly clear that Spartan society was particularly vile, while the Persians were about as "free" a society as existed by the standards of the day.

Yeah, the weird fascism stuff was pretty vile. Sparta is full of manly men, and their enemies are effeminate or degenerate or whatever.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Deathline (1972)

Mutant cannibals (or rather cannibal, as there's only really one left), descended from Victorian tunnel diggers trapped underground, are eating people in the London rail network.

Surprisingly disturbing for this sort of thing, the guy who plays the mutant manages to be pitiable as well as horrible. Also there's a line in Monster Club (1981) in which a human-ghoul hybrid mentions talk of good eating in the underground, which might be a reference to this film. EDIT: Both films had Donald Pleasence, but he's not in the ghoul sequence of Monster Club.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Oh, saw that years ago, quite decent, IIRC, though a bit forgettable because so many Vietnam war movies seem much the same.

I can only compare it to Platoon because of the war crime scene and the moral rift that follows. I didn't find it generic at all. It doesn't have the 60s cliche "Vietnam songs" because of Morricone and De Palma very much makes it his own movie. If anything it has more in common with his other movies than with Nam movies. And it's an easy Top 10 for Vietnam movies too.

 

[BrawlMan]

I've already mentioned it a while ago, but I have the same problem with 1997's Titanic. Not that it claimed to be a documentary, but the Jack and Rose fictional love story completely overshadows the actual tragedy of over 1,500 people who actually died, and dragged the runtime unnecessarily to over 3 hours. The gravity of the situation already exists without adding romantic drama to it, and arguably could have been better portrayed in half the time, and memorialized actual victims. But no; it will forever be a love story, the 1,500 "other" bodies floating around Jack serving as little more than scenery.

One of the many reasons why I hate this movie. Titanic should have just been a story about different passengers branching paths into each other, before and after the ship sinks. That would have made a more interesting film than whatever Jack and Rose are doing for nearly 3 hours before the ship starts sinking.

Ditto but with 300 for me. There was a concerted effort to lionize Spartan society in regards to Thermopylae and the Greco-Persian Wars. Frank Miller fell bigtime for this heavily biased look at history, and Zach Snyder was right behind him. The efforts were more looking to demonize anything Persian as "non-western" as opposed to Grecian "western society." There's some line about "free men" fighting a "slave army." Which is funny considering slavery had been outlawed in the Persian Empire even before Xerces took over and their soldiers were paid mercenaries, while around 3/4 of the Spartan population were slaves. There was a jab at Athenians about pedophilia, even though in reality Spartans practiced more or less institutional pedophilia. Plus, it wasn't too long after Thermopylae that Sparta would basically be fighting on the same side with the Achaemenid Persians against Athens. It really isn't a good idea to assign "good guys" and "bad guys" when looking at nonfictional history. But it is fairly clear that Spartan society was particularly vile, while the Persians were about as "free" a society as existed by the standards of the day.

300 I saw it once and I never wanted to see it again after that. I didn't pay for it either. I watched it on a friend's laptop when he downloaded it.

 

[Bartholen]

Ditto but with 300 for me. There was a concerted effort to lionize Spartan society in regards to Thermopylae and the Greco-Persian Wars. Frank Miller fell bigtime for this heavily biased look at history, and Zach Snyder was right behind him. The efforts were more looking to demonize anything Persian as "non-western" as opposed to Grecian "western society." There's some line about "free men" fighting a "slave army." Which is funny considering slavery had been outlawed in the Persian Empire even before Xerces took over and their soldiers were paid mercenaries, while around 3/4 of the Spartan population were slaves. There was a jab at Athenians about pedophilia, even though in reality Spartans practiced more or less institutional pedophilia. Plus, it wasn't too long after Thermopylae that Sparta would basically be fighting on the same side with the Achaemenid Persians against Athens. It really isn't a good idea to assign "good guys" and "bad guys" when looking at nonfictional history. But it is fairly clear that Spartan society was particularly vile, while the Persians were about as "free" a society as existed by the standards of the day.

300 is the #1 movie I have ever hated in my entire life, but having delved into Zack Snyder to an almost embarrassing extent, I don't think he was ideologically behind Miller's lunacy. Because I don't think Snyder ever thought of it that way, or is even capable of analyzing film through that lens. From all I've seen of him Snyder seems like a really wholesome, genuinely passionate guy who's never gotten into any serious controversy for anything related to him personally, so I have a really hard time thinking he's some cryptofascist signaling to white supremacists. I think he just thought "that looks cool" and made it into a movie, which is basically how I think he makes all of his movies. Don't get me wrong: I still think 300 is a vile, repugnant, morally bankrupt piece of essentially fascist propaganda, but I can't lay the blame for that on Snyder, because he simply seems to lack the capacity for any kind of deeper analysis of film beyond surface level.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

65

Tell me you shot a movie in 2020 during the pandemic with no actors on a shoestring budget without telling me, then release it while The Least of Us is streaming so you can ride the surrogate dad/surrogate daughter travel and bond wave.

Adam Driver crashlands on Earth - 65 million years ago. No time travel involved, humanity just happened to evolve first on some other planet. And there's no point to the fact that it is Earth other than to have dinos running around.

The movie is laughably cute. Driver keeps pulling gadgets that look like plastic toys, freshly purchased and/or intervened by the prop guy. The spacecraft looks like a set. The seatbelts look like they belong in a Toyota. At no point do you mistake the Oregon backwoods or the Louisiana bayou for something that would've grown and flourished 65 million years ago, when CGI dinosaurs were running around jump-scaring their prey.

Oh, they do the Revenant thing where Driver is haunted by dreams/hallucinations/videos of his Movie Cough Daughter. He's actually on an expedition that will triple his salary, which he needs in order to pay for his daughter's medical bills. 65 million years ago on the planet Somaris, capitalism already has mankind on a bind and healthcare remains a *****. Go figure.

It's all pretty bad but also kinda cute.

 

[Piscian]

Broker (2022)

A young lady decides to give up her newborn child to a church for adoption but discovers that there is an active group which steals these children for sale. She catches the group red handed and joins them in an exciting road trip to find customers ready to buy the child. Things don't go smoothly since two lady cops are hot on their trail, and things get complicated.

Typical South Korean Drama. Super well-written, well shot, well acted, cute, funny, adorable, and of course - heartwrenchingly sad. For what it's worth this one is lighter fair. You won't need a hard drink and sit in silence pondering the human condition after, this is more slice of life. The summary would make you think everyone is a scumbag of course, but it's actually far more complex and you'll feel pretty deep empathy for all involved.

Highly recommend 10/10 Can't really go wrong with this one, just be prepared to tell people you were chopping onions all day.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

300 is the #1 movie I have ever hated in my entire life, but having delved into Zack Snyder to an almost embarrassing extent, I don't think he was ideologically behind Miller's lunacy. Because I don't think Snyder ever thought of it that way, or is even capable of analyzing film through that lens. From all I've seen of him Snyder seems like a really wholesome, genuinely passionate guy who's never gotten into any serious controversy for anything related to him personally, so I have a really hard time thinking he's some cryptofascist signaling to white supremacists. I think he just thought "that looks cool" and made it into a movie, which is basically how I think he makes all of his movies. Don't get me wrong: I still think 300 is a vile, repugnant, morally bankrupt piece of essentially fascist propaganda, but I can't lay the blame for that on Snyder, because he simply seems to lack the capacity for any kind of deeper analysis of film beyond surface level.

Zach Snyder is basically "rule of cool" in human form. I'm not really sure he even understands what subtext is.

Now that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's possible to make a truly great movie with absolutely no subtext (see John Wick or RRR). I just don't think that it's worth spending any brainpower trying to analyze the work of Zach Snyder because I think he put in equally little brainpower making it.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★ review of Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

Not a terrible movie, by any means, but it has some serious flaws, including ones that no Disney movie should have. The plot of the film follows the titular character (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran). Tasked with guarding the Dragon Gem alongside her father, Chief Benja (Daniel Dae Kim in a sadly...

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