Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[gorfias]

Villains on Hulu

Villains (2019) ⭐ 6.2 | Comedy, Drama, Horror

1h 30m | R

www.imdb.com

Very different movie about a couple that reminds me of Honey Bunny and Pumpkin from Pulp Fiction that break into the home of a twisted pair of psychopaths. Really twisted and well done. Terrific performances, particularly from Bill Skarsgard.
B+

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Mission Impossible 3

I guess the one where the franchise just settles down.
Cruise is back with a reasonable haircut, another skinny/petite love interest, and sensible editing. The cast is stacked with one of that eras great actors in Philip Seymour Hoffman playing an absolutely compelling and despicable villain because, you know, he's a good actor and such.

The movie is interesting for establishing a few things:
- Keri Russell's transition from drama girl (Felicity) to action chick (the Americans). She is rescued and seems all beat up and weak until Cruise slo-mo tosses her a gun, she kicks ass and looks awesome doing it, then dies and thanks Cruise for helping her agent find her more lucrative work. Perfect.
- The start of the JJ Abrams of franchise control. Competence, blandness, and plot incoherence.

The two things Abrams does- which is a forerunner of what he'll do with Star Trek/Wars- is to make a movie where you can understand the action, it moves along well, everything looks good but not too memorable, and everything is... fine. But it's very open about not caring about the plot and sort of makes fun of you if you do? I mean there's this whole McGuffin object they're all fighting about and at the end of the movie characters actually joke about not knowing what it is, like if you care you're stupid. I mean yeah guys, I know it doesn't really matter, the point is the action and spectacle, but.. I dunno, it's fun to try? Doesn't it add more if the filmmakers care about the plot at least?

It is nice to see more women do stuff in this film than before- not just Russell but some Asian chick gets to look cool and sexy and actually survives so that's good. Ving Rhaimes' characters is trying to have serious life advice talk with Cruise during a mission which drove me a bit made.. like, bro, can we grab a beer after we survive this or something?

And once again, Cruise's love interest puts up with way too much of his crap. "Oh you lied to me about everything, that's OK, I love you" lol no my dude wut

Unlike the previous film, the action seems to respect the laws of physics and Cruise is no longer doing Street Fighter moves. I do like that.

 

[Absent]

Unlike the previous film, the action seems to respect the laws of physics and Cruise is no longer doing Street Fighter moves. I do like that.

Yep, it transitions from "trying painfully hard to look super hyper cool x-treme" to "hey, looking cool enough but for real". Also transitions from lone Bond towards trademark MI teamwork, although not quite there yet (actually the films never get QUITE there, but they still get it better with each iteration).

Also, it's odd to say, but the plots and mcguffuns are indeed more memorable and meaningful in old Bond movies than in these MI films. That's why reason the MI films are one collective blur in my mind, vaguely distinguishable solely by "oh yes that's the one with that action scene". And nothing to do with the plot or motives.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Also, it's odd to say, but the plots and mcguffuns are indeed more memorable and meaningful in old Bond movies than in these MI films. That's why reason the MI films are one collective blur in my mind, vaguely distinguishable solely by "oh yes that's the one with that action scene". And nothing to do with the plot or motives.

I blame/credit the Cold War for this.

Even with the Bond movies- the ones before Brosnan tend to be more memorable to me and I couldn't tell you what the recent ones have been about, kind of like MI. The Soviets gave American and British filmmakers tasty, simple villains. For a brief period in the early 00's they tried to do that with scary Muslim/Arab terrorists but that didn't really stick (in fact, I was really curious if MI was gonna do that and they didn't).

 

[BrawlMan]

And once again, Cruise's love interest puts up with way too much of his crap. "Oh you lied to me about everything, that's OK, I love you" lol no my dude wut

She does later leave him and she has a cameo in the fifth movie.

guess the one where the franchise just settles down.
Cruise is back with a reasonable haircut, another skinny/petite love interest, and sensible editing. The cast is stacked with one of that eras great actors in Philip Seymour Hoffman playing an absolutely compelling and despicable villain because, you know, he's a good actor and such.

The actress for the previous love interest wasn't interested in coming back. That's why the character mysteriously disappears. According to the actress, the Cruise was tough to work with and acted like an ass on the set MI2. At least with her and John Woo.

 

[Absent]

I blame/credit the Cold War for this.

Even with the Bond movies- the ones before Brosnan tend to be more memorable to me and I couldn't tell you what the recent ones have been about, kind of like MI. The Soviets gave American and British filmmakers tasty, simple villains. For a brief period in the early 00's they tried to do that with scary Muslim/Arab terrorists but that didn't really stick (in fact, I was really curious if MI was gonna do that and they didn't).

Yes and no. The Bond film avoided geopolitics, and the evil KGB of the novels was usually replaced by Spectre and other disowned dissidents of sorts, with the USSR itself being presented as a friendly competition partner. The cold war is more of a setting than a matter, and baddies were less the communists than the evil 3rd parties that try to saw discord between the good friendly east/west blocs.

But irradiating fort knox, laser-ing from space, threatening to detonate atom bombs for a ransom, running after an enigma-like machine or a satellite control device, or launching various overly dramatic false flag operations, gassing mankind from a space station, struck the imagination more than whatever the stakes were in those missions impossible.

 

[BrawlMan]

For a brief period in the early 00's they tried to do that with scary Muslim/Arab terrorists but that didn't really stick (in fact, I was really curious if MI was gonna do that and they didn't).

The scary Muslim-Arab trend still stuck around far longer that should have been. I'm glad it ended rather quickly, but there were still cases of people wanting it and movies or trying to act like it wasn't a big deal if it happened. It really wasn't until the mid and late 2000s where the trend stopped and filmmakers actually showed how that's not the case or there are gray areas involved with the US government or other governments screwing up as well. Or making things worse.

 

[Hawki]

Yes it was De Palmarifically over the top with like everybody dying but at least Ethan Hunt had motivations, goals, drive?

Okay, but does Ethan really lack these things in MI2? For instance, it's established that:

-He and the Russian scientist guy have a history, and now he's been killed by Sean Ambrose.

-Sean Ambrose, who Ethan also has a history with, namely one of mutual dislike due to their different approaches (Ethan favours deception, trying to avoid taking lives, Sean is happy to stack up a body count)

-An entire plane of innocent people is killed thanks to Sean, so that's more motivation.

-The love triangle with Nyah.

-The stakes represented by Chimera which, if released, would trigger a global pandemic

That's not to say Ethan lacked drive in the first film, but he really doesn't lack it in the second.

Granted, I know I like MI2 a lot more than most people for a variety of reasons, some of them more biaised than others, but still...

Mission Impossible 3

I guess the one where the franchise just settles down.

Oh you poor sweet child...

- The start of the JJ Abrams of franchise control. Competence, blandness, and plot incoherence.

Um, really? Because of all the MI films I've seen (all of them sans Ghost Protocol), I'd say MI3 has the most straightforward plot of them all.

I mean there's this whole McGuffin object they're all fighting about and at the end of the movie characters actually joke about not knowing what it is, like if you care you're stupid. I mean yeah guys, I know it doesn't really matter, the point is the action and spectacle, but.. I dunno, it's fun to try? Doesn't it add more if the filmmakers care about the plot at least?

I've never really got this criticism. I know the film sort of teases as to what the Rabbit's Foot actually is, but it's clearly a bio-weapon. Yes, it's a bio-weapon that's not nearly as well explained as Chimera, or the stakes involving the NOC list in the first film, but the stakes are pretty self-apparent.

 

[BrawlMan]

Okay, but does Ethan really lack these things in MI2? For instance, it's established that:

-He and the Russian scientist guy have a history, and now he's been killed by Sean Ambrose.

-Sean Ambrose, who Ethan also has a history with, namely one of mutual dislike due to their different approaches (Ethan favours deception, trying to avoid taking lives, Sean is happy to stack up a body count)

-An entire plane of innocent people is killed thanks to Sean, so that's more motivation.

-The love triangle with Nyah.

-The stakes represented by Chimera which, if released, would trigger a global pandemic

That's not to say Ethan lacked drive in the first film, but he really doesn't lack it in the second.

Granted, I know I like MI2 a lot more than most people for a variety of reasons, some of them more biaised than others, but still...



Oh you poor sweet child...



Um, really? Because of all the MI films I've seen (all of them sans Ghost Protocol), I'd say MI3 has the most straightforward plot of them all.



I've never really got this criticism. I know the film sort of teases as to what the Rabbit's Foot actually is, but it's clearly a bio-weapon. Yes, it's a bio-weapon that's not nearly as well explained as Chimera, or the stakes involving the NOC list in the first film, but the stakes are pretty self-apparent.

Here you go.

​

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

So when I'm talking about the movies' plots and such, I guess it's more about how I feel, or how it's presented. Sure in MI2 Ethan Hunt has motivations. But it doesn't actually feel like he does, because of how it's presented. Like it's all too stupid. In the 3rd one, the stakes are highlighted and centered.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Halloween Ends

What a weird note to end the new 'trilogy'. It's bookended by Laurie Strode and Michael Myers but it's not really about either of them. The real protagonist is some Corey Cunningham, who accidentally killed a kid on Halloween (I think it's supposed to be during Michael's rampage in Halloween Kills) and 4 years later he's a deadbeat being bullied and ostracized by the community. Laurie takes pity on him and sets him up with her granddaughter, who also kinda hates Haddonfield. I'd hate it too. It's more comical than sad that Corey and Laurie can't walk across the street without running into some asshole. I'd get outta there in a heartbeat.

The majority of the movie is just this grungy YA love story about (young, handsome) misfits. Michael shows up around 40 minutes to mentor Corey in the ways of the Dark Side. I thought it was a weird choice that they go to a packed theater so Michael can tell him the tragedy of Darth Plagueis. I don't quite buy this mystical link between the two of them, or the way the movie treats evil like it's contagious.

Still better than Kills though.

Kills is what the fanboys and girls wanted more of in Ends, which is where most of the discontent stems from. I’ve read COVID made them rethink the direction, as it was originally supposed to pick up right after Ends without skipping a beat. Hence the deleted scene of Laurie leaving the hospital for a final date with Michael.

So they instead attempted the introspective “what is evil” approach, which might’ve been fine if it wasn’t marketed as the ultimate showdown for a seemingly endless (no pun) slasher vehicle. The bait and switch really soured it for a lot of people, and the messy execution of this rethought premise didn’t help. I think the goal was using Corey as a blank slate to represent how evil can “infect” an innocent. It’s seen among townsfolk in the aftermath of Michael’s latest spree, how no one’s kind or friendly anymore outside of the actual first hand survivors. Corey is personally troubled, bullied and ostracized, highly vulnerable to Michael’s “charms”. It takes a sharp turn into the supernatural to make it happen, but there is a transfer of dark energy we’re expected to take away as a metaphor for how “evil never dies”.

In a way I can respect that each of these three latest movies did something different. The first is like a slow build up to Michael and Laurie’s reunion and showdown (originally supposed to be a self-contained story but of course $ prevailed), the second is Michael just kicking ass in top slasher form, and third is seeing the “bigger picture”. But I would’ve preferred seeing what was originally planned for Ends.

 

[XsjadoBlaydette]

They Cloned Tyrone - (Netflix)

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I haven't watched it yet, but apparently in the new TMNT movie, the turtles learn ninjutsu from watching martial arts movies. So if you're planning to watch, this is the kind of movie you should be expecting.

 

[BrawlMan]

I haven't watched it yet, but apparently in the new TMNT movie, the turtles learn ninjutsu from watching martial arts movies. So if you're planning to watch, this is the kind of movie you should be expecting.

In TMNT 2014, Splinter learns ninjutsu from a book found in the sewer, and then teaches it to the turtles themselves. Some old-school fans bitched about it, but most others didn't give a crap. Granted, Hamato Yoshi doesn't exist in that version, so I get where they're coming from, but not every Turtle show/movie has to have the exact same origin over and over again. Most people won't complain about this, aside a vocal minority of the '87 fan boys who never learn to shut up.

​

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The Tragedy of Macbeth

3 months of free Apple TV, here we go.
Here's a hot take: Macbeth is the best work of literature to have so many brilliant adaptations. Off the top of my head they're all bangers. Polanski, Kurosawa, Welles, Kurzel and now Joel Coen's first solo movie. I've seen a lot of horrible adaptations of Shakespeare but never a Macbeth I didn't like.

So this is the expressionistic, black and white fever dream version of Macbeth, all staircases, courtyards, arcades and weirdo perspectives ala Giorgio de Chirico. Everything looks vast and claustrophobic, uncanny and empty of life. There's a lot of artistic reinterpretation of the text, like having Kathryn Hunter play the three witches (sometimes in schizophrenic conversation, like Gollum) and having them symbolically recur throughout the play (the crows). The acting is awesome in this by the way. Denzel and Frances in this are like complete new actors as far as I'm concerned.

Then there's Ross, who is barely a character in the play (as I recall) but here and in the Polanski version is reimagined as basically orchestrating the whole thing from the shadows. I like this unspoken rule about never writing new dialogue for Shakespeare while trying to "rewrite" his stories. So Ross becomes the villain merely by being present or adjacent in certain events, while never uttering a word, as well as the performance. Maybe a bit to a fault? It's like in Lolita (1962) when Kubrick basically gave the movie to Peter Sellers. But then you read the book, like me, and find out the character is practically a footnote to the story. In any case by the end he's given the role (another Polanski nod) of making it clear the cycle of greed and doom is unending.

 

[Gordon_4]

In TMNT 2014, Splinter learns ninjutsu from a book found in the sewer, and then teaches it to the turtles themselves. Some old-school fans bitched about it, but most others didn't give a crap. Granted, Hamato Yoshi doesn't exist in that version, so I get where there coming from, but not every Turtle show/movie has to have the exact same origin over and over again. Most people won't complain about this, aside a vocal minority of the '87 fan boys who never learn to shut up.

​

I actually think the '87 cartoon (which I think is also the origin for Nikelodeon 2012) wherein Splinter is a mutated Hamato Yoshi is the tidiest way to do it. It eliminates most of the imagination stretching you need to do about how Splinter was able to give them weapon training despite never - for obvious reasons - handling one before. It doesn't preclude using characters like Tang Shen, Karai, Oroku Nagi (have any of the adaptations ever used him, like, ever?) or the fleeing to America bit.

I haven't watched it yet, but apparently in the new TMNT movie, the turtles learn ninjutsu from watching martial arts movies. So if you're planning to watch, this is the kind of movie you should be expecting.

As long as they weren't Godfrey Ho or Michael Dudikof movies I'm easy.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I haven't watched it yet, but apparently in the new TMNT movie, the turtles learn ninjutsu from watching martial arts movies. So if you're planning to watch, this is the kind of movie you should be expecting.

So...can you learnt to be a ninja turtle by watching it?

 

[thebobmaster]

Just got back from Talk to Me. This may sound like an exaggeration, but this may be the scariest movie I've seen in theaters. Granted, I can probably count the number of horror movies I've watched in theaters on one hand, but that doesn't take away from just how scary this movie was. It didn't use a lot, if any, jump scares, either. It was pure atmosphere and realistic acting, along with WTF scenarios. Highly recommend to any horror fan. It really did speak to me.

On a related note, I have a feeling that those plastic hands that they sell as props around Halloween time are going to fucking haunt me this year.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I haven't watched it yet, but apparently in the new TMNT movie, the turtles learn ninjutsu from watching martial arts movies. So if you're planning to watch, this is the kind of movie you should be expecting.

I mean... it's... Teenaged. Mutant. Ninja. Turtles. I'd say that alone would give an idea what kind of movie you're walking into.

But then I never gave a shit about how Batman learned to be Batman either, just that he's Batman. Hot take I guess: everything to do with the League of Shadows and the al Ghul's can go die in a ditch. It's lame and pointless.

 

[BrawlMan]

I actually think the '87 cartoon (which I think is also the origin for Nikelodeon 2012) wherein Splinter is a mutated Hamato Yoshi is the tidiest way to do it.

Yes it is the most straightforward and streamlined version of Splinter. The 2012 version did the same thing, but I never liked that version of show when it came to the later seasons. They tried aping/taking too much from the 80s version and pandering way too much to '87 fans by the third and fourth season. Though I stopped watching around the third season. What didn't help matters was Nick was being an asshole to the original writers in the first season, and all Nick cared about was toy sales, than storylines. So the original writers left after the first season due to creative disputes. Which explains the quality drop the further the show goes on.

It eliminates most of the imagination stretching you need to do about how Splinter was able to give them weapon training despite never - for obvious reasons - handling one before.

The live-action movie and 2003 got around this by Splinter copying Yoshi's moves everyday, and the mutagen enhancing is intelligence even further. I never had problems or complaints about this origin or the comic origin and works fine for me.

It doesn't preclude using characters like Tang Shen, Karai, Oroku Nagi (have any of the adaptations ever used him, like, ever?) or the fleeing to America bit.

Nagi only exists in the original comic, and that is it. Karai was always the adopted daughter of Shredder, with her being the actual daughter to Tang and Yoshi/Splinter, in the 2012 version. Tatsu was always a male stand-in for Karai/loyal bodyguard to Shredder in the first two live action movies from the 90s. Tatsu would later get his own expy in the 2003 version with Hun.

As long as they weren't Godfrey Ho or Michael Dudikof movies I'm easy.

The Dudikof American Ninja movies are least actually fun and have some quality of life and effort put in them. Not the best ninja movies, but still better than Surf Ninjas, the later 3 Ninja sequels (mainly the shitty fourth movie), and especially better than anything from Godfrey Go.