Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[Johnny Novgorod]

The Mario Movie

Cute, fun, meaningless experience, more theme park than movie. At an extremely fast-paced 92 minutes it feels like a checklist of all the things the Nintendo execs wanted in the movie: we gotta have Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Luigi's Mansion, Odyssey and variations of 2D and 3D Mario in there! It feels like an adaptation of the Mario franchise (Donkey Kong/Country included) moreso than any one property.

The vistas are pretty and the videogame gags are cute but the movie overall is desperately lacking a personality of its own. Like look at the soundtrack: "I Need a Hero" as Mario has a crash course on platforming, "Take On Me" when he's whisked into a brand new world, AC/DC as karts rev up towards Rainbow Road. Bleh. Mario's character trait is "not giving up" (he's told, and not like he'd realize if he wasn't), so having never given up throughout the whole movie, his big moment of "not giving up... again" at the end of it is quite empty. Jack Black gets to have fun singing a love ballad about Peach. Lyrics: "Peach, Peach, Peach, Peach, Peach". Everybody else is fine.

Rife with Easter Eggs to be listed in various fan breakdowns with thumbnails blotted by red arrows and red circles.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

The Mario Movie

Cute, fun, meaningless experience, more theme park than movie. At an extremely fast-paced 92 minutes it feels like a checklist of all the things the Nintendo execs wanted in the movie: we gotta have Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Luigi's Mansion, Odyssey and variations of 2D and 3D Mario in there! It feels like an adaptation of the Mario franchise (Donkey Kong/Country included) moreso than any one property.

The vistas are pretty and the videogame gags are cute but the movie overall is desperately lacking a personality of its own. Like look at the soundtrack: "I Need a Hero" as Mario has a crash course on platforming, "Take On Me" when he's whisked into a brand new world, AC/DC as karts rev up towards Rainbow Road. Bleh. Mario's character trait is "not giving up" (he's told, and not like he'd realize if he wasn't), so having never given up throughout the whole movie, his big moment of "not giving up... again" at the end of it is quite empty. Jack Black gets to have fun singing a love ballad about Peach. Lyrics: "Peach, Peach, Peach, Peach, Peach". Everybody else is fine.

Rife with Easter Eggs to be listed in various fan breakdowns with thumbnails blotted by red arrows and red circles.

I like it when things turn out exactly what they look like beforehand, it means I don't have to go see them.

 

[McElroy]

Rife with Easter Eggs to be listed in various fan breakdowns with thumbnails blotted by red arrows and red circles.

Most of all I await the explanation for this.

 

[Ringo]

Got a free trial of a streaming service and watched a handful of newer things.

The Truth, Kore-eda's French film from a couple years ago was about as polite and lukewarm as most of his Japanese work. Family resentment and gentle moments that don't really build up to anything. Ethan Hawke completely wasted, Binoche and Deneuve could have sleepwalked through it---it's virtually identical to every other middle-brow French film made these days.

Flux Gourmet, the latest Peter Strickland joint about culinary art: a group of food sound artists. A tacky and self aware take on the art world. One of the softest targets imaginable and executed with the same knowing and cynical manner that Strickland's other stuff is. No where near as fun as it should be.

The Novice, about an obsessed college rower who neglects her studies and destroys herself because she wants to row good. It's basically Whiplash or Black Swan but about rowing. It's made with the same sort of suicidal effort that the main character exhibits, like if it tries hard enough it'll be great. Doesn't work that way of course. All the overbearing editing and shooting techniques (and numerous training montages) just end up feeling cliched and obnoxious.

Corsage, a festival favourite from last year about Empress Cici of Austria. Handsome, starring the always great Vicky Krieps. As a costume drama I guess it succeeds, but it isn't a lot more than that. People made a lot of noise about the film's cheeky feminism and its use of anachronism, but neither actually ends up altering the meaning of it a whole lot. It's fine, but it feels more trendy than good.

Benedetta, Verhoeven's nunsploitation story about the pious lesbian nun who ended up running a convent. The most interesting of the bunch I thought. It's a slippery one, moving in and out of erotic and prestige cinema in both sincere and sarcastic ways. I found it difficult to be very engaged in its narrative, but the lady's fantasies of a penis-tucking, macho avenging Christ were inspired and humorous. In the end one gets the sense that it's all just about a woman who wants attention. There are pleasures in this one.

Anyways, that was my bi-annual brush with newer movies. Now I'm going to go back to watching old movies, which are often much better.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

The Mario Movie

Cute, fun, meaningless experience, more theme park than movie. At an extremely fast-paced 92 minutes it feels like a checklist of all the things the Nintendo execs wanted in the movie: we gotta have Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Luigi's Mansion, Odyssey and variations of 2D and 3D Mario in there! It feels like an adaptation of the Mario franchise (Donkey Kong/Country included) moreso than any one property.

The vistas are pretty and the videogame gags are cute but the movie overall is desperately lacking a personality of its own. Like look at the soundtrack: "I Need a Hero" as Mario has a crash course on platforming, "Take On Me" when he's whisked into a brand new world, AC/DC as karts rev up towards Rainbow Road. Bleh. Mario's character trait is "not giving up" (he's told, and not like he'd realize if he wasn't), so having never given up throughout the whole movie, his big moment of "not giving up... again" at the end of it is quite empty. Jack Black gets to have fun singing a love ballad about Peach. Lyrics: "Peach, Peach, Peach, Peach, Peach". Everybody else is fine.

Rife with Easter Eggs to be listed in various fan breakdowns with thumbnails blotted by red arrows and red circles.

92 minutes? Sold!
Well... later, to watch at home.

I think it's hilarious that it's getting crapped on by critics who seem upset that a Mario movie is a movie that is like playing a Mario game.
I am not normally one of those people that universally rails against critics- I think there is absolutely a place for film criticism and I have learned a lot by reading and listening to good ones. I also am staunchly opposed to franchise fanboyism that whines when people criticize "their" thing.

But in this case, it does seem like some of the criticism is silly. Like that the movie has a simple plot and feels more like watching someone play a game. Clearly to me the filmmakers decided to do the complete opposite of that live-action 90's movie which tried to make Mario like a real actual movie. And that movie sucked. The only reason it is experiencing nostalgia is because every stupid thing is experiencing nostalgia because people are lame.

I look forward to spending an hour and a half- less than most streams I listen to on youtube!- to watch a silly funny Mario thing in a few months.

 

[09philj]

Infinity Pool

A surprisingly comedic and lighthearted headlong dive into a phantasmagoria of psychadelic depravity. It's slight, but is good weird fun and doesn't feel overlong despite being two hours. 3/5

 

[gorfias]

This Pitch Meeting made me watch John Wick again on Peacock and it is as good and neat a movie as I recalled.

 

[XsjadoBlaydette]

Cocaine Bear - le buys
A fair way to spend some time, above the average attempt at horror-ish comedy, but nothing clever. Does what it says on tin. Needs more blood. And cocaine. Or that could just be me.

Megan - le buys
An above average way to spend some time. Fairer than the average attempt at a horror-ish comedy. Tin what it says on does. Needs more cocaine. And bloody bears. Refuse to type the name with the e number tho, and Google appears to agree. Wait, no just checked Google does not agree. It just edits my resistance.

 

[Trunkage]

92 minutes? Sold!
Well... later, to watch at home.

I think it's hilarious that it's getting crapped on by critics who seem upset that a Mario movie is a movie that is like playing a Mario game.
I am not normally one of those people that universally rails against critics- I think there is absolutely a place for film criticism and I have learned a lot by reading and listening to good ones. I also am staunchly opposed to franchise fanboyism that whines when people criticize "their" thing.

But in this case, it does seem like some of the criticism is silly. Like that the movie has a simple plot and feels more like watching someone play a game. Clearly to me the filmmakers decided to do the complete opposite of that live-action 90's movie which tried to make Mario like a real actual movie. And that movie sucked. The only reason it is experiencing nostalgia is because every stupid thing is experiencing nostalgia because people are lame.

I look forward to spending an hour and a half- less than most streams I listen to on youtube!- to watch a silly funny Mario thing in a few months.

I've gotta say, there aren't that many critics saying this. Maybe it's that I'm not in the US

Anyway, my 5 year old was skipping out of the movie and even my 10 year old was bouncy

The only thing I would add is Luigi finally gets a fine moment right at the end that held more emotional impact that most of the movie

Take you kids, they'll love it

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

New Rose Hotel

You would think, if Christopher Walken and Willem Dafoe play crime buddies trying to pull a con, and Asia Argento has her tits out the whole movie - sounds too good, right? Well, yeah. It's the weirdo arthouse version of that, shot if not cobbled together by Abel Ferrara in his MTV-meets-nouvelle-vague phase. It's characters talking off screen, about events that are never shown, in a plot that doesn't go anywhere. It's all about creating a mood piece, the sugar rush of hitting all the notes we know and like from genre filmmaking without having to bother with the responsibility of building anything with them or around them. It's like how so many student film bros make one minute shorts about mafia sit-downs. And as I said that I thought, The King of New York (also by Ferrara) is a great example of what most student film bros are trying to achieve when they do their mafia sit-downs shorts. But I digress. So does the movie.

 

[Dalisclock]

The Mario Movie

Cute, fun, meaningless experience, more theme park than movie. At an extremely fast-paced 92 minutes it feels like a checklist of all the things the Nintendo execs wanted in the movie: we gotta have Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Luigi's Mansion, Odyssey and variations of 2D and 3D Mario in there! It feels like an adaptation of the Mario franchise (Donkey Kong/Country included) moreso than any one property.

The vistas are pretty and the videogame gags are cute but the movie overall is desperately lacking a personality of its own. Like look at the soundtrack: "I Need a Hero" as Mario has a crash course on platforming, "Take On Me" when he's whisked into a brand new world, AC/DC as karts rev up towards Rainbow Road. Bleh. Mario's character trait is "not giving up" (he's told, and not like he'd realize if he wasn't), so having never given up throughout the whole movie, his big moment of "not giving up... again" at the end of it is quite empty. Jack Black gets to have fun singing a love ballad about Peach. Lyrics: "Peach, Peach, Peach, Peach, Peach". Everybody else is fine.

Rife with Easter Eggs to be listed in various fan breakdowns with thumbnails blotted by red arrows and red circles.

If my 5 year old kid says she wants to go see the Mario movie, I'll take her. I'm not going to bring it up but if she somehow gets wind of it and says she wants to see that, I'll be happy to take her.

 

[McElroy]

The Power of the Dog
Jane Campion's film adaptation of a 60s Western novel by Thomas Savage. Starring Benedict Cumberpatch as the rough rancher Phil, Jesse Plemons as his pudgy brother George, Kirsten Dunst as an innkeeping widow, Rose, and some dude as her slenderman of a son. George falls for Rose because they're in Montana in 1925 and it's fucking lonely in there, while Phil is a sigma male who loves the idea of man taming the wild and finding his purpose there. And women just get in the way. But Rose's son Peter loves his mother too. Can the three of them upset the sigma grindset? Should they?

Pretty cool movie. Campion doesn't stray too far from The Piano even almost 30 years later, but no inner monologue this time, and so it's the pictures and sounds doing the talking. 8/10

 

[Absent]

New Rose Hotel

You would think, if Christopher Walken and Willem Dafoe play crime buddies trying to pull a con, and Asia Argento has her tits out the whole movie - sounds too good, right? Well, yeah. It's the weirdo arthouse version of that, shot if not cobbled together by Abel Ferrara in his MTV-meets-nouvelle-vague phase. It's characters talking off screen, about events that are never shown, in a plot that doesn't go anywhere. It's all about creating a mood piece, the sugar rush of hitting all the notes we know and like from genre filmmaking without having to bother with the responsibility of building anything with them or around them. It's like how so many student film bros make one minute shorts about mafia sit-downs. And as I said that I thought, The King of New York (also by Ferrara) is a great example of what most student film bros are trying to achieve when they do their mafia sit-downs shorts. But I digress. So does the movie.

Intellectually, I know I've seen it. But my memories of it are a vague blurry blob equivalent to a very confused trailer. It's usually either a sign that I should rewatch a movie or that I should absolutely not.

Ferrara makes me think of Alain Resnais, in a completely opposite style. They are both VERY hit-and-miss (very hit and very miss), but both are always interesting. None of their movies are unworthy of curiosity.

 

[Bartholen]

John Wick Chapter 4 (2023)

Remember the days when John Wick was just a badass local hitman recently retired from a mid-range Russian mafia outfit? I do. Somewhere along the line, John Wick became an ultra badass best assassin in the world where assassins are run by some weird council of ultra-rich implicitly centuries old, with rules from the medieval era.

What movie did you watch if you didn't get the "ultra badass best assassin" thing from the get go? It's played almost as a joke how everyone in the first movie, sans Alfie Allen's character, knows who John Wick is and is nice with him because they all know what he can do. They literally call him the Boogeyman for crying out loud.

Anyway, I personally had a fucking blast with this movie. It might be my favorite of them all. I was trepidatious after seeing the reviews, because how could a fourth movie about a guy with 2 facial expressions, no personality and like 20 lines of dialogue, just going around killing people still be engaging? Turns out it very much can, and the answer is the same as it's been with all these movies: by having the most lavish, stylish and kickass action scenes of the decade so far.

For me the John Wick movies have managed to hit a feeling similar to how I think James Bond was once upon a time: shameless, brainless power fantasy devoid of subtext or theme, taking the audience around the world to exotic locales and sights, and just having things go boom in the most extravagant and stylish way possible. And god damn does chapter 4 provide on those fronts. It feels even more comic book-y than its predecessors when Scott Adkins turns up as a mashup between The Penguin and Bob from Tekken, and he's not so much chewing the scenery as just swallowing it whole. The creativity with the action scenes never seems to run dry, there's a different twist or gimmick to each and every one: this one shows how this blind guy fights, this one's on a long staircase, this one's in a museum. The pacing is excellent, the 160 minutes just flew by for me. There's bits of black humor and even slapstick sprinkled in just at the right time so it lands perfectly. You could add straight up Looney Tunes sound effects to certain scenes, and it would only enhance the experience.

So yeah, 9/10 for me. If they decide to end it here I won't be mad, but I certainly won't get my knickers in a twist if they contrive yet another one of these. I saw the trailer for Fast and Furious X at the screening I was at, and John Wick is still ways off from becoming the kind of tired self-parody that those movies have turned into, partly because JW was stylized and tongue in cheek from the beginning.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★ review of You Only Live Twice (1967)

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

letterboxd.com

 

[Piscian]

Hello from the void

I saw a couple new movies this week

Shazam: Fury of the Gods

Simply put it's a fun, well put together well acted generic super hero movie. It's Meteor Man, Hancock, My super ex-girlfriend etc. There's a sort of attempt to have a running sub-plot where in Captain Marvel (I'm not calling him shazam, fuck copyright)is struggling with imposter syndrome, but it's just not very deep and doesn't quite deliver the catharsis needed to elevate the film beyond a simple joy ride. The new mythology is wildly incorrect and is needlessly confusing. All that said there's a consistent pace and forward momentum that makes the movie immanently watchable. I could watch this again, I never felt my ADD kick in and drag me away from it. Theres a couple teasers for this movie existing both in Snyder and Gunns universes. If I had my rathers I say keep it going, this deserves a third one. This is a character and story that can exist without all the obnoxious Cinematic Universe stuff. Unfortunately with critics hipsterishly savaging it and audiences not turning out I wouldn't be surprised if Gunn closes the door on this one. 8/10

John Wick 4

I made the mistake of going in the afternoon instead of an early showing and ended up getting stuck next to a family who not only talked throughout the whole film, but their kid fell asleep in the last half and snored loudly for about an hour. It shouldn't have been so bad, but I think I might have Hyperacusis. Planning to see a doctor about it. I have a hyper sensitivity to noise. Like just a dripping sink is like nails on a chalk board to me so even through the family was making a mild effort to not talk loudly it was so distracting I could hear them over the Dolby Atmos pounding over the theater and often didn't catch dialog in the film. Despite this...I'm not in a huge hurry to see this again.

It's a tad more straight forward than the third one. It's funny I've seen the third one twice but I could not tell you how it ended. So much of it was aimless fights that go on so long that the story gets relegated to the background. Jackie Chan once did a fight choreography tutorial where he explained that you can't just have a premise for a fight, you need to have a clear beginning direction and end. It has to feel like it's going somewhere. While John Wick 4 mostly follows the rules here there's several fights that go on so long I could quite tell you where they began or ended. There's a kind of rocky moment where John has to make it up 220 steps while fighting bad guys and he gets thrown back down the stairs no less than 3 times and eventually you're just like "Can we just get on with this already?".

There's serious dissonance at this point between the battles in the original John Wick and this film. In the first film every fight was brutal, savage and to the point. In this everyone now has Kevlar dinner suits and a lot.. I mean alot, of it is people firing at each while constantly just raising their sleeves or coat tails to block shots.

The story itself is meh. John is being hunted by the 12 at the high table, but this time they are using a scorched earth tactics where in they are killing every one of his friends and burning down the continentals who give him shelter so as shown in the trailers he decides to challenge the 12 representative to a duel for peace between him and the 12. This turns into a few fetch quests before resulting in a final battle. Throughout this adventure he's hunted by a blind Assassin played by Donnie Yen who's pretty great. Honestly he's kind of the only real engaging character in the movie. There's pretty cool duel between donnie yen and Tokyo conventional manager played by Hiroyuki Sanada in which they do this cool moonlight reflection on Donnie Yens pearl hue eyes and I suddenly thought what a great TMNT villain Donnie Yen would make. Not necessarily shredder, but a new villain. He was quite compelling as this bored, "I don't want to be here" villain who easily dispatched armies inbetween bowls of ramen.

Overall though it was idk 7/10. It was hard to stay engaged when it felt like the stakes were so minimal in every fight.

sidenote: Omg hollywood stop trying to make Scott Adkins happen. He's not going to happen.

 

[Bartholen]

sidenote: Omg hollywood stop trying to make Scott Adkins happen. He's not going to happen.

Sorry to break your heart, but Scott Adkins has been happening for over 20 years. Not in big roles, but mostly as a stuntman and general bad guy in tons of movies. And seeing as the John Wick movies are basically a big family gathering for stunt people and martial artists (not least because it's directed by a stuntman), him turning up was inevitable.

 

[BrawlMan]

sidenote: Omg hollywood stop trying to make Scott Adkins happen. He's not going to happen.

Yeah no, he's been around for a long time. I happily watch any role he's in; especially if he's in a leading role. He's been doing a lot of straight to home video action films that puts most of Hollywood's crap to shame. Adkins is a cool guy, and he knows how to act and fight. Me and many other action aficionados are glad he's getting more work and recognition.

​

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Intellectually, I know I've seen it. But my memories of it are a vague blurry blob equivalent to a very confused trailer. It's usually either a sign that I should rewatch a movie or that I should absolutely not.

Ferrara makes me think of Alain Resnais, in a completely opposite style. They are both VERY hit-and-miss (very hit and very miss), but both are always interesting. None of their movies are unworthy of curiosity.

The whole movie is very hazy. It's characters talking in circles, in code, before and after things happen just off screen. It has two kinds of scenes: Walken and Dafoe cryptically discussing their mark, and Argento getting it on with Dafoe. There's very little to grasp at. You see these two scenes, you've seen the whole movie. The last 20 minutes are a clip show of the previous 70 minutes.

I learned after the fact that it was based on a short story by William Gibson, Mr. Neuromancer, which explained the inscrutable plot and the computer screens on phones. It's scifi the way Alphaville is scifi.

First two movies I watched by Ferrara were Bad Lieutenant and King of New York, and it's all been downhill for me since. I like him enough to give him a shot every time but it's usually a miss for me. I've only watched Hiroshima/Marienband/Night and Fog by Resnais, which are all great, but generally have low tolerance for nouvelle vague stuff. Then again I found Rivette's La Belle Noiseuse, a 4 hour movie about a painter talking to his model while composing a picture we never even see, infinitely interesting and entertaining.

 

[Hawki]

Okay, I've seen a bunch of movies recently, so quick blurbs on each, rankings where appropriate:

The Rescuers (5/10)

It's bland, it's vanilla, I've got nothing.

Rankings below:

Spoiler

35) The Black Cauldron
34) Dinosaur
33) Cinderella
32) Dumbo
31) Robin Hood
30) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
29) The Rescuers
28) Oliver & Company
27) The Sword in the Stone
26) The Little Mermaid
25) Pocahontas
24) Peter Pan
23) Bambi
22) Basil, the Great Mouse Detective
21) The Aristocats
20) Frozen II
19) Bolt
18) Wreck-it Ralph: Ralph Breaks the Internet
17) Tarzan
16) Fantasia 2000
15) 101 Dalmations
14) The Jungle Book
13) Alice in Wonderland
12) The Emperor’s New Groove
11) Hercules
10) The Hunchback of Notre Dame
9) Fantasia
8) Moana
7) Big Hero 6
6) Beauty and the Beast
5) Treasure Planet
4) Frozen
3) Aladdin
2) The Lion King
1) Zootopia

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (5-7/10)

I've given a stipulative ranking to this based on the criteria as to how familiar you are with Mario. If you are familiar, then chances are you'll have fun, simply based on the Easter eggs, references, overall vibe, etc. If you're judging this as an adaptation, it's hard to get more faithful than this, and certainly improves on the Mario IP in terms of characterization, as thin as it is.

On the other hand, treating this purely as a movie on its own terms, "thin" is the key word. Plot is thin, character development is thin, the movie rarely takes the time to stop and breathe, and when it does, only for a few seconds at a time. It honestly feels like there should be extra scenes in some cases, because otherwise, things are just missing. In terms of character, for instance, Toad's motivation for joining the adventure is "I want to be brave," and that never comes up again. Certain plot points are brought up (e.g. there's a warp pipe that leads into the sewers of New York) that's the impetus for getting Mario and Luigi into the world/dimension/whatever and the implications of this are never brought up or considered. Even the live-action film actually explained the mechanics of its world, for instance. And Illumination being Illumination, there's a bunch of unfunny humour, even if it works in other cases.

The irony of this is despite all that, this is still probably one of the best VG films ever made, but that's a low bar to cross.

Anyway, Illumination rankings are below:

3) The Secret Life of Pets
2) The Super Mario Bros. Movie
1) Sing

Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (7/10)

I didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would. Whether you enjoy it or not will probably depend on how much latitude you're willing to give it.

If you treat this movie straight, as in, a heist/comedy/adventure film, then it doesn't really work, because a lot of the plot is driven by a McGuffin hunt. Characters want to acomplish A, but can't accomplish A until they retrieve item X, but to retrieve item X, they must find person P, who takes them to location L, where they find Item X, but Item X doesn't work, so they must retrieve Item Y, and to that, they need...well, you get the picture. Drop in a bunch of proper nouns with silly names with evil wizards doing evil things for evil reasons, cackling evily while they cast evil magic, then you get the idea. It's fantasy schlock, and Lord of the Rings, this ain't. It isn't even The Hobbit movies.

On the other hand, if you look at this from the position of tongue-in-cheek, and see the absurdities as intentional, then it is kind of fun, because everything is rediculous, McGuffins driving the plot feels true to an RPG, and there's quite a few laughs to be had. The problem is, I don't think this movie really commits to one thing or the other, because there's lots of moments where we're clearly meant to take things seriously, and the emotional drama, however cliched, is played straight. People have compared this to GotG, but the difference is that GotG knew what it wanted to be. This? I'm not so sure about.

So, yeah, I think the film is "good," but only just, and like Mario, I'm coming at this from positive bias.

Air (7/10)

Of the films I saw in the cinema, this would be the best one from an objective standpoint. Anyway, the TL, DR version is "Moneyball, but basketball instead of baseball, and not as good." Still, it's a well made movie, even if it feels like an ad for Nike.