Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★½ review of Signs (2002)

“Isabel, you’re going to feel very silly when this all turns out to be make-believe.” As some casting trivia, the role of Graham Hess was originally planned for an older man, but due to contractual obligations on another film, Clint Eastwood wasn't available, and Paul Newman wasn't interested...

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[Phoenixmgs]

But what about The Glimmer Man!?

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★½ review of Howl's Moving Castle (2004)

“Is it the enemy, or one of ours?” “What difference does it make?” The plot of this film follows a young woman named Sophie (Emily Mortimer). After being cursed by the Witch of the Waste (Lauren Bacall) to turn into an elderly lady, and now voiced by Jean Simmons, Sophie sets out to find a way...

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[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★★ review of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

"A Spanish man of faith cursed me as he died by my hand. He called me "El Niño sin Amor," "the Child without Love." And I took my name from there, Namor, because I have no love for the surface world." To say this film had a troubled production is quite the understatement. First, when production...

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[Johnny Novgorod]

Watched two Argentine movies, for a change.

Puan

Is the loftier one, though not necessarily the better movie overall. It's a very folksy comedy that pits a humble, hapless everyman vs. a flashy hipster who "sold out" abroad and is now back home to claim a top position at a university's philosophy department (the previous head, the everyman's mentor, passed away suddenly). As usual, any Argentine who finds success abroad is arrogant, pretentious and must be eyed suspiciously. So the battle of wills begins with several set-pieces designed to belittle and humiliate the protag. Some bits are funny, others are painfully forced beyond farce or caricature. The protag delivers a series of philosophical lectures throughout the movie, hammering the message about as artlessly as it can get, which ultimately is less about measuring up to others and more about finding your own voice. Cute.

No puedo vivir sin ti (I Can't Live Without You)

An Argentine-Spanish co-production that has the immense benefit of taking place in Bilbao. Actually the movie is almost entirely a Spanish thing, but for the protagonist, Adrián Suar. Suar is basically Adam Sandler without the talent or the occasional good movie: forever middle-aged, middle-class, married to a hottie and working to close a deal or make partner in subplots of incremental banality. He has his own production company, always casts friends and family, and remains unaccountably popular with people who think humor peaked with Dad's Too Busy comedies from the 90s.

Here he's snagged Paz Vega, from Spanglish (another Sandler alert), but the marriage is on the rocks because he's a smartphone addict (as in he's a workaholic). He keeps failing his wife and kids by never being present, never showing up for anything, and basically planning his life around them. The marriage is about done just as he's up for an important promotion which has him glued to the phone with calls and Zoom meetings. Most of the actual comedy comes from him trying to conceal these, and the movie's best sequence is a variation of the 2 Dates At Prom routine (family BBQ in the garden, Zoom meeting in the bathroom). Not as funny: the support group he starts going to, which treats phone addiction like it's AA. Maybe that's a thing, but I thought the jokes were too simple and obvious.

 

[thebobmaster]

Another re-review of a Golden Age Disney movie, and if you thought I was harsh on this one the first time through...

A ★½ review of Peter Pan (1953)

“Oh, dear, dear, dear, Captain Hook. Shooting a man in the middle of his cadenza? That ain't good form, you know.” While this film didn't have a troubled production once it started, it did take quite some time to manifest, as Walt originally wanted Peter Pan to be his second movie, after Snow...

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[Gordon_4]

Alien Romulus - 7/10

Look, if you put the good parts of Alien, Aliens, the less shit parts of Alien Resurrection and for some reason some of Prometheus into a blender, this is what you'd get.

What works is the very back to basics story. It doesn't fuck about with pointless stuff, establishes the stakes pretty quick and moves at a good clip. Its just the ending drags a bit and that's where the Prometheus shit makes its unwelcome entry to the story. Also, some of the call back dialogue is very on the nose.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Watched The Gray Man again. I know it didn't exactly set the world on fire, but I was surprised at how poorly this was received by critics (and apparently audiences on IMDB?). I thought it was really fun. The overuse of drone shots is hilarious and there is not an original bone in this movie's body, but Gosling, Evans, and even de Armas put on really impressive performances. Gosling was Bourne if he had a sense of humor, Evans was such a gigantic douchebag/loser, and de Armas was just a goddamn great action heroine.

I think this movie made me question even more why The Fall Guy wasn't more interesting. Gosling can do action sequences really well, and can get thrown around very convincingly as well. I kinda wanna watch The Nice Guys now.

 

[Gordon_4]

Watched The Gray Man again. I know it didn't exactly set the world on fire, but I was surprised at how poorly this was received by critics (and apparently audiences on IMDB?). I thought it was really fun. The overuse of drone shots is hilarious and there is not an original bone in this movie's body, but Gosling, Evans, and even de Armas put on really impressive performances. Gosling was Bourne if he had a sense of humor, Evans was such a gigantic douchebag/loser, and de Armas was just a goddamn great action heroine.

I think this movie made me question even more why The Fall Guy wasn't more interesting. Gosling can do action sequences really well, and can get thrown around very convincingly as well. I kinda wanna watch The Nice Guys now.

The Nice Guys is awesome, well worth a watch.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

The Nice Guys is awesome, well worth a watch.

I should have said, "watch The Nice Guys again". I do remember really enjoying it.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

The Return of the King (1980)

Last of the animated Lord of the Rings adaptations that started in the late 70's, this one produced by Rankin/Bass again.

Suffice to say, this one's a lot better than the Bakshi movie, even if I still wouldn't call it good. Much like the studios earlier ada

ptation of The Hobbit, it tries to cover way too much material in way too short a runtime. And much like The Hobbit, it's a musical with some pretty bad music. There's exactly one good song in it, and it sounds absolutely nothing like the rest.

But let's take this from the top. Return of the King covers the climax of Lord of the Rings. And... you know, let's take a minute to acknowledge how weird this all is. Rankin/Bass adapted The Hobbit, only for Bakshi to adapt the earlier parts of Lord of the Rings in a completely different style up to what feels like a completely arbitrary point a bit past the middle, leaving Rankin/Bass to adapt all that's left in the style of The Hobbit again. Yeah, I don't get it either. It leaves Return of the King feeling like the sequel to a theoretical Rankin/Bass Lord of the Rings movie that doesn't actually exist.

Return of the King, accordingly, doesn't even try to be a comprehensive adaptation of its section of the book, or a followup to the Bakshi movie. It focuses on Frodo and Sam's journey through Mordor, only sporadically cutting to the war happening in Gondor which must seem borderline incomprehensible to someone who hasn't read the book or seen one of the later adaptations. Aragorn is barely in it, Legolas and Gimli have been cut entirely, Eowyn shows up to kill the Nazgul with no buildup, even describing it as a cliffnotes version would be too generous.

The part of this that works and, however barely, holds the movie together is the journey of Sam and Frodo that is pretty much the movies backbone. Return of the King features an almost comically intense performance by Roddy McDowall as Sam that pretty much single handedly carries the movie. The whole "brothers in arms travelling across a battlefield" vibe that this section of the story conveys is translated pretty faithfully, conjuring up some actual emotional investment in something that's otherwise very clunky.

Again, there is a night and day difference between this and the Bakshi movie. The artwork is consistent and to a large part even appealing. The pacing is mostly sensible. There are character interactions you actually give a shit about. It's, on a basic level, competent and at it's best, even charming and whimsical. And the version of Gollum from the Hobbit movie shows up. Love the guy! It's just awkward, is all. It's interesting to think about, in parallel timeline only marginally different from this one, the Ralph Bakshi movie wouldn't exist and Rankin/Bass could have made their own adaptation of the earlier half of Lord of the Rings and there would be a series of stylistically consistent animated Tolkien adaptations with a beginning, middle and end. And while I don't think it would have been good, exactly, it would have been watchable and almost definitely a nostalgic childhood classic for a lot of people. But what we got instead is this disjointed tryptich whose middle part just happens to be a hideous mess that looks nothing like the other two parts.

 

[Bartholen]

Death Wish (1974), 4/10.

This is among the most quintessential classics of 70s cinema, and a start to what would become one of the most flanderized movie series in history. Like many films of that era, it's like a prototype or origin point of its kind, in this case the revenge thriller: meek guy's wife gets killed and her daughter assaulted, and he goes on a rampage of revenge.

To be honest, I was expecting more from this film. Many of these 70s classics I've seen have turned out much more nuanced and interesting than I'd assumed from cultural osmosis, but this felt very much like the most basic of revenge plots. I was left ultimately pretty unclear on what the film wanted me to think. It certainly feels like it's firmly on the side of the main character: we never see him have a crisis of conscience, he never makes a mistake in his violence, all his victims are unequivocal thugs and muggers, and it doesn't seem like turning into a casual vigilante is bothering him at all. In fact he seems to be quite chipper about the whole affair. I was expecting this to be one of those fundamentally misunderstood films like Fight Club or Rambo, but if the movie's message is that violence doesn't pay, it certainly doesn't come across like that. There are so many ways the movie could do that, but it just doesn't.

In the second half the main character gets almost sidelined in his own movie as it turns from a character piece into a police investigation movie. But there's basically no tension to it, because we're always aware of what both parties are doing. So what we're left with is the most bog standard revenge plot and a very by the numbers police procedural, neither of which are particularly interesting story or character wise. As such, the most interesting part of this movie for me was being a time capsule of 70s New York. At one point a character says something to the effect of "If we could afford to live anywhere else, we would", which is a fucking hilarious line in 2024.

So yeah. Despite its status in pop culture, Sorcerer or Taxi Driver or Jaws this is not.

Edit: yeah, this film is pretty much a "literally me" for repblican boomers. It's straight up proto-fascist glorification of vigilante violence. Morally bankrupt and repugnant.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★½ review of The Blackening (2022)

“You got Rosa Parks on your shirt, right? Would she be sitting down?” “I mean...that’s exactly what she did.” This film follows a group of former college friends celebrating Juneteenth as well as reuniting at a cabin in the woods. Consisting of Allison (Grace Byers), King (Melvin Gregg), Shanika...

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[Johnny Novgorod]

Zoë Kravitz's Get Out

A spin-off from the Jordan Peele movie, the setting is now a cryptobro's private island, and the white folk's victims are now women. Themes include sorority, Believe All Women and forgetfulness; this last one informs the editing of the movie, which skips between scenes like it is trying to distract you with poolside montages of Instagram high life while simultaneously dropping hints of this other, darker movie we're not watching. The effect is as disorienting to the audience as it is to the characters, as they start catching on to weird time skips and lack of continuity.

I was left a bit underwhelmed by the movie. You'll see the twist coming from your own house, before you even leave for the theater. And it's not just that the twist is so obvious, but that I also simply don't believe it:

The women are getting raped. That's it. Raped and memory-wiped every night. Not that I'm not willing to believe that people with, say, Zoë Kravitz's net worth won't buy an island and do fucked up things in it for their own amusement. It's just that... ok, do we think Leo DiCaprio needs an island and a memory wiper to get laid? Does movie Channing Tatum not have enough pull by looking like Channing Tatum, and having Channing Tatum money? Does he need the cloak and dagger to bang women who're already clearly into him? Or am I missing the point, which is that the rape is the point?

So I dunno. Zoë Kravitz's Get Out joins in on the eat-the-rich messaging that the rich keep pushing on us shmoes, and it's all very entertaining. I liked seeing Kyle MacLachlan, Geena Davis and Christian Slater all in the same movie, sharing a scene together. Adria Arjona was good. I guess I was expecting more.

 

[Bartholen]

Spring Breakers, 4/10

This is Harmony Korine's sleazy... what would you even call this? Thriller maybe? Drama? It's about a group of friends in a nowhere college who rob a fast food joint and go on Spring Break in Florida. They eventually get involved with a sleazebag rapper and hedonist played by James Franco, and stuff spirals from there.

I'd seen this when it came out, and it hasn't gotten any better. Didn't like it then, didn't like it now. It's a short film or a music video torturously stretched into a feature film, with one of the thinnest, close to nonexistent plots I've ever seen. It feels more like an excuse for Korine to just depict all sorts of lurid sleaze on screen: nudity, drugs, partying, violence, sex and the works. For a lot of it it feels like the intro to a porno, and at the end it pretty much turns into one. Scenes just sort of happen disconnected from one another, character arcs are pretty much nonexistent unless you count "getting scared and going home", the dialogue's incredibly repetitive and basically pointless. It does have some visual flair with its neon-drenched oversaturated colours and occasional interesting shots or sequences, but it's nowhere near enough to merit a watch. James Franco is unequivocally the best part of the movie, and he's clearly having a ton of fun with the role. But like the rest of the movie, it's only a fun concept which the film never does anything interesting with.

The most frustrating part about this movie is how it on multiple occasions seems to suggest at much more interesting concepts and ideas, but never does anything with them. When one of the characters (I think her name was Faith) muses that Miami feels like the most spiritual place she's been, I started thinking what an interesting idea for a character it would be to discover their true self through crime, drugs and partying. The film plays lip service to ideas like party life not being all it's cracked up to be, getting in over one's head, delving into one's darkest indulgences, and does nothing with any of them. Skip this one big time.

Dune (1984), 2/10

This has garnered some renewed attention with the Villeneuve films, but does not deserve some critical reappraisal IMO. I was genuinely taken aback by just how awful this film was. I didn't think that a film this schizophrenic, this awfully paced and this overexplanatory could also be this fucking boring. For me this was pretty much a Peter Jackson's vs. Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings scenario, where the newer version is so overwhelmingly superior to the previous one that it makes its predecessor obsolete. Aside from some nice visual design, interesting effects and some humor from how everyone has an internal monologue all the goddamn time, I found close to zero entertainment value from this. This might genuinely be one of the worst films I've ever seen. I didn't hate it in the same way I do something like The Last Airbender or 300, but that's actually worse: hate at least is energizing and keeps your attention. Dune ´84 on the other hand is just turgid, dull and humorless, and mostly works as just a case study to be compared to the Villeneuve version: pretty much everything is done wrong here.

This has to be one of the worst exposited movies I've ever seen. Despite the movie constantly overexplaining everything, it still doesn't make a lick of sense if you don't know anything about Dune. A horrific amount of screentime and dialogue is spent on utterly pointless technical detail and scenes that go nowhere. The acting is all over the goddamn map: at times it feels like you're watching some grand historical epic, but when the Harkonnens show up it turns into Looney Tunes. An entire movie's worth of plot is torturously squeezed into the last 40 minutes, but by that time I was already checked out. Reading an old Warhammer rulebook was riveting compared to this. This was just horrendous, but I'm glad I watched it just to be able to appreciate Villeneuve's version that much more.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

James Franco is unequivocally the best part of the movie, and he's clearly having a ton of fun with the role.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★½ review of The Mask (1994)

“This is impossible…” “Those pajamas are impossible. This actually happened.” This film follows a mild-mannered bank employee named Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey). After a night of the universe just bending him over and making him take it up the tailpipe, he finds a wooden mask in a river and...

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[thebobmaster]

A ★½ review of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

“You think this is new to me?” As some casting trivia, both Steve Martin and Matt Berry were considered for the minor role of Lord Krylar, before the final casting of Bill Murray. In addition, the eventual casting for Kang the Conqueror was almost not cast at all after he walked out of the first...

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[Thaluikhain]

Spring Breakers, 4/10

Dune (1984), 2/10

You like Spring Breakers more than Dune?

I did not see that coming.

 

[Bartholen]

You like Spring Breakers more than Dune?

I did not see that coming.

It's partly about not being able to constantly compare the 1984 version to the new one, but also about the films reaching their goals. Spring Breakers is trying to be a plotless, sleazy, lurid haze of sex, drugs and partying, and mostly succeeds at that by being consistent. Also, tits. It hints at possible character exploration or thematic substance, but goes no further. In that it's a successful film. Not one I enjoy, but it mostly succeeds at what it's going for. It sets the bar low and clears it.

Dune on the other hand not only sets the bar astronomically high, but chops off one of its legs before even attempting the jump by stuffing all its plot into one movie. It then proceeds to jump the wrong way, hits its head on the bar, and then falls in a catastrophic fumble before crashing into a bloody heap of broken bones and flesh. It's so filled with misguided and just plain inept choices that all the effort and money on display only makes it more painful to watch. Much like Showgirls, all the money and production value in the world cannot salvage the completely rotten interior.