Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★½ review of History of the World: Part I (1981)

"It's good to be the king." This film didn't have too many production issues, with one exception. Richard Pryor was originally cast in a major role, but just two days before filming, he had an...incident with pyrotechnics that resulted in severe burns over his body and a hospital stay. As a...

letterboxd.com

 

[BrawlMan]

IMO Spiderverse got snubbed in favor of this.

Not that big of a deal. The first Spider-Verse won an Oscar in 2019. Across may I have not won an Oscar, but it doesn't mean it lost entirely, nor made its efforts any less meaningful. It's influence can still be felt, and it is one of the highest grossing box office superhero films during the summer of 2023. I love both of these movies for the same in different reasons. They both did their best and they're both my favorite animated movies of 2023.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

IMO Spiderverse got snubbed in favor of this.

Spiderverse is an incomplete movie. It was my only criticism of the movie, but it's a pretty valid criticism.

There's a reason that Lord of The Rings didn't win anything except technical awards until Return of the King.

 

[thebobmaster]

Don't ask me why I did this to myself.

A ★½ review of 102 Dalmatians (2000)

"To the dogs!" The plot of this film starts off following Cruella De Vil (Glenn Close). After being basically brainwashed into being a pet lover by a Dr. Pavlov (ha), she donates part of her money to an animal shelter owned by Kevin (Ioan Gruffudd) called the Second Chance Dog Shelter. There's a...

letterboxd.com

 

[Gordon_4]

The Terminator - 10/10

Guys, it’s The Terminator. You know it’s good. I know it’s good. Absolutely stunning effects for the day and for today on a budget most action directors would laugh at. Simple but effectively told story with strong characterisation for the three main characters but also the bit players (Ginger and Matt, Trexler and Vukovich) that makes them come across as real people. Iconic, bone crunching action scenes and an atmosphere second to none. Although Terminator 2’s version of the theme is more famous, I still feel Brad Fiedel’s first version - along with the rest of the score - are often unsung heroes in the film’s effectiveness.

 

[Ag3ma]

I think the movie's problem, and maybe this has something to do with the director's background in scifi, is that it feels like there should be a rhyme and a reason to all the crazy things that happen but the movie never really comes clean with its own logic. It goes off the rails, and the lead actress kinda stops having a "realistic" response to the whole phantasmagoria, to the point you don't care because she doesn't care and you wonder if we're in purely allegorical territory ala Aronofsky's Mother (there's some Christian iconography in there to boot).

I don't really agree with this.

It's a folk horror and exists within that tradition. Horror of any sort generally gives plentiful room for the supernatural, so there can be an expectation plenty of this is "crazy". Her guilt and experiences interacting with a supernatural folk power.

I actually think the end works okay. The lead character feels guilty because she was in a controlling, abusive relationship, and when she ended it, he committed suicide. The suicide was the last act of that abuse - on realising he couldn't keep her, he wanted her to feel guilty to punish her for leaving him. So she heads off to the country to get away, and is instead confronted by supernatural forces representing either toxic masculinity or her own guilt through the lens of the toxic masculinity she experienced. Thus we see her experience all manner of forms of the blaming, abuse of and marginalisation of women, and a realisation that this is an ancient thing, passed on from generation to generation.

In a way, the end is the heroine getting over her guilt. Her realisation that the problem isn't her, it's not her fault. Her partner was an abuser, his suicide was his choice and she didn't force him into it. She's not what such men want her to be, and doesn't have to do what they want. Without her guilt or acceptance of this misogynistic tradition to feed it, the force just has no power any more.

 

[gorfias]

The Terminator - 10/10

Guys, it’s The Terminator. You know it’s good. I know it’s good. Absolutely stunning effects for the day and for today on a budget most action directors would laugh at. Simple but effectively told story with strong characterisation for the three main characters but also the bit players (Ginger and Matt, Trexler and Vukovich) that makes them come across as real people. Iconic, bone crunching action scenes and an atmosphere second to none. Although Terminator 2’s version of the theme is more famous, I still feel Brad Fiedel’s first version - along with the rest of the score - are often unsung heroes in the film’s effectiveness.

I'm in a minority that also really likes T3 a lot. T1 came out with all these other movies with indestructible bad guys (Halloween, Friday the 13th... tbf Nightmare on Elm St came out the same year) but with a sci fi twist, this one made sense. It was sci fi horror. T2 was more an action movie. T3 really returned to Sci Fi with a sense of dread. I wonder if 4 would have done better if they didn't reveal so much in the trailer. Seems like they could have made a better franchise after 3 but choked. Then again, hard to have an entire franchise grounded in a paradox (that the savior of the future was sired by someone from that future in the past).

 

[Ag3ma]

T3 really returned to Sci Fi with a sense of dread. I wonder if 4 would have done better if they didn't reveal so much in the trailer. Seems like they could have made a better franchise after 3 but choked. Then again, hard to have an entire franchise grounded in a paradox (that the savior of the future was sired by someone from that future in the past).

Franchises are always going to have a problem with "regression to the mean" - anything that starts great is likely to proceed towards mediocrity over time.

Much of the problem is that the creative force that initiated the series gets stale, runs out of ideas, moves on and is replaced by a lesser talent. Perhaps ideas that work for a shorter story (like, a film or two) simply don't work so effectively when expanded out. In many cases, such as the Terminator series, it's just an IP handed over to some regular studio flunkies to bash things out in the style of what was done before. It's never going to be a recipe for maintaining high quality.

In some cases, there may be creative clash between the past and the future: the past becomes a millstone when the franchise needs to move on (think angry fans yelling "that's not canon"). Or why Star Wars eps 7-9 under JJ Abrams ended up a grossly unambitious, tepid retelling of eps 4-6 with slightly different characters and locations.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★ review of Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)

"And to think...I hesitated." While maybe not quite as troubled as the first film's production, there were still some issues behind the scenes with this one. For one thing, while Clive Barker remained as executive producer, the first choice to write and direct the movie, Michael McDowell, had to...

letterboxd.com

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Of course they did; the fan fic sequels.

 

[BrawlMan]

View attachment 10889

That AI art?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I never realized how much Vin Diesel looks like Dr. Evil.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

That AI art?

No, it's a meme from 2018, so it predates AI art by a few years.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★★ review of Alien (1979)

“There is an explanation for this, you know.” “Is there really? I don't wanna hear your Goddamn explanation.” The plot of the film follows a tug ship named the Nostromo. Crewed by Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Kane (John Hurt), Parker (Yaphet Kotto), Ash (Ian Holm), Lambert (Veronica...

letterboxd.com

 

[Piscian]

So....I watched Roadhouse (2024) last night.

Ok I need to talk about this before we even discuss the quality of the film. THE CINEMATOGRAPHY IN TOTALLY INSANE!!!

I don't mean it's good. I mean whomever did the camera work was high on fucking mescaline. Most people probably just gloss over this stuff, but there isn't a single establishing shot in the entire film. At no point is there ever a widepane shot at any point. Every single fucking shot is either over the shoulder like RE4, or from a cubby in the bar or from some shoe looking up for some fisheye angle. Theres a scene in the film where jake goes to the bookstore to use the computer and at no point are he and the clerk in the same shot together. It zoom cuts from his face, her face, him at the desk, her talking to him, like non-stop.

Seriously go back and watch it and count how times time per scene the shot is from some bizarre nonhuman angle, also he constantly does this thing where hes behind an actor on a rolling camera and he walks the camera in this like "circle" around the actor.

It all kinda makes the film very claustrophobic. When the action is happening its always these zoom cuts that happen so fast it takes you a second to process what actually happened.

Also It didn't bother me but all the action scenes are also glossed over with CGI which has this weird effect of making them look like videogame cut scenes, but they are live action, just smoothed over for some bizarre reason.

I actually enjoyed the movie itself, but early on you realize it's all satire. Every single character in the film is kind of a cartoon character with extremely goofy lines. All the action is super cartoonish. McGregor is just pure nonense. I think you have to "want" to like this movie. You can't take it seriously, it feels very obvious that they know its dumb and you're supposed to be laughing and throwing popcorn at the screen. Instead of Roadhouse it really took me back to like early nineties action movies. I got major JVCD Double Impact kinda vibes. Oh also it's incredibly bloody. Not knuckle bloody. Like people getting stabbed..a lot. JG is bleeding from open wounds, the same wound he gets in the beginning of the movie just keeps reopening over and over.

I enjoyed it. I'll never watch it again, but its a 7/10. If you're looking for a homage to the old Roadhouse though, this isn't really it. It's something I suspect nobody actually wanted out there, but it was filmed so ..fuck it!

 

[BrawlMan]

So....I watched Roadhouse (2024) last night.

Ok I need to talk about this before we even discuss the quality of the film. THE CINEMATOGRAPHY IN TOTALLY INSANE!!!

I don't mean it's good. I mean whomever did the camera work was high on fucking mescaline. Most people probably just gloss over this stuff, but there isn't a single establishing shot in the entire film. At no point is there ever a widepane shot at any point. Every single fucking shot is either over the shoulder like RE4, or from a cubby in the bar or from some shoe looking up for some fisheye angle. Theres a scene in the film where jake goes to the bookstore to use the computer and at no point are he and the clerk in the same shot together. It zoom cuts from his face, her face, him at the desk, her talking to him, like non-stop.

Seriously go back and watch it and count how times time per scene the shot is from some bizarre nonhuman angle, also he constantly does this thing where hes behind an actor on a rolling camera and he walks the camera in this like "circle" around the actor.

It all kinda makes the film very claustrophobic. When the action is happening its always these zoom cuts that happen so fast it takes you a second to process what actually happened.

Also It didn't bother me but all the action scenes are also glossed over with CGI which has this weird effect of making them look like videogame cut scenes, but they are live action, just smoothed over for some bizarre reason.

I actually enjoyed the movie itself, but early on you realize it's all satire. Every single character in the film is kind of a cartoon character with extremely goofy lines. All the action is super cartoonish. McGregor is just pure nonense. I think you have to "want" to like this movie. You can't take it seriously, it feels very obvious that they know its dumb and you're supposed to be laughing and throwing popcorn at the screen. Instead of Roadhouse it really took me back to like early nineties action movies. I got major JVCD Double Impact kinda vibes. Oh also it's incredibly bloody. Not knuckle bloody. Like people getting stabbed..a lot. JG is bleeding from open wounds, the same wound he gets in the beginning of the movie just keeps reopening over and over.

I enjoyed it. I'll never watch it again, but its a 7/10. If you're looking for a homage to the old Roadhouse though, this isn't really it. It's something I suspect nobody actually wanted out there, but it was filmed so ..fuck it!

Thanks for the review. I'm skipping this. I like OG Roadhouse, but I am not a hyper fan like my parents are. I already know they're not going to see the remake. Both of them don't know it even exists.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★½ review of Aliens (1986)

"Have you ever been mistaken for a man, Vasquez?" "No. Have you?" Oh, boy. To say this film had a troubled production is to put it lightly. First of all, it took not one, not two, but THREE changes in management at Fox before a president actually put faith into an Alien sequel treatment written...

letterboxd.com

 

[Thaluikhain]

A ★★★★½ review of Aliens (1986)

"Have you ever been mistaken for a man, Vasquez?" "No. Have you?" Oh, boy. To say this film had a troubled production is to put it lightly. First of all, it took not one, not two, but THREE changes in management at Fox before a president actually put faith into an Alien sequel treatment written...

letterboxd.com

Supposedly, the guy playing Burke did such a good job of being evil, that even the actors parents approved of him getting eaten.

(Ok, probably don't need spoilers, but doesn't hurt)

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★ review of Wishmaster (1997)

“You wish to know what I am? To you, I am this: The cry of the abandoned child. The whimper of the whipped beast. I am the face that stares back at you from the shadows of your mirror. The hollowness at the heart of all your hopes, Alexandra. I AM DESPAIR.” After an opening narration by Angus...

letterboxd.com

 

[Casual Shinji]

Obligatory for the Aliens Special Edition.