Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

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Johnny Novgorod

Bebop Man
Legacy
Feb 9, 2012
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You know you say it in jest, but if you had to put jumper cables on Rambo for a sixth sequel, that is not a half bad idea.
I'm only half jesting. I would absolutely watch that. Throw in Trautman's daughter - he has to rescue her like he rescued her father - and I'm there on opening night.
 

Johnny Novgorod

Bebop Man
Legacy
Feb 9, 2012
18,466
3,005
118
Everest

About the 1996 expedition that ended in 8 deaths. Movie's caught between being exhilarating and respectful and doesn't leave much of an impression. I dunno. I'm sorry those people died, but maybe climbing Mt Everest purely for bragging rights is asking for it.
 
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XsjadoBlayde

~it ends here~
Apr 29, 2020
3,216
3,354
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Am certain something's wrong with me as can only watch psychological horror or bleak sci-fi on my own as anything upbeat or positive weirdly makes me feel more depressed unless watching them with someone else. So here goes yet more bleak sci-fi and psychological horror then...

Little Joe. (Prime)
No, not about a less giant monkey or Brad Pitt playing death, this is about a cute wee lil plant being engineered by a small team of bickering scientists where its pollen is supposed to make anyone around it happy. Scientist lady takes one home for her son, against regulations. This does a lot with a small budget, and I don't have any complaints really. It's very low-key, more like a mellow Black Mirror episode. Covers identity, depersonalisation, ambition, amongst other things. As a person with some experience in strong doses of various antidepressants, it can feel a bit too close to home with changes in some behaviours at times, and there's an underlying creepiness to how it presents a certain type of empty happiness that looks fine at first until you scratch the surface.

The Power. (Shudder)
The growing number of women directors in psychological horror has been great for the genre I believe, this is another gem, set in the 70s during union/government friction causing regular blackouts across the UK. Young nurse gets new job in hospital, which are naturally unsettling places in those times. Though it's technically a ghost story, the main ghost hovering over this film is that of Jimmy Saville and the culture that allowed people like him to keep getting away with the vast sexual abuse that he and no doubt many others did. Which am thankful for cause ghosts aren't scary and it is infinitely more interesting to understand the various factors often at play that contribute to such a horrific reality instead. Wholeheartedly recommended, great atmosphere, sense of place and acting throughout, with a message or two that's incredibly important, so all young girls and women should see it at the very least.

The Banishing. (Erm... available for purchase through Prime I think?)
Similar to above, feminist horror, but a bit more "classic" in many ways, including the WW2 setting. Small family moves in to new house, spookies occur, but whether it's just a "me" thing or not, I felt more anxiety and investment during the conversations than any of the more typical horror moments. It's good, but not mind blowing...perhaps I've spoiled myself too much on high quality goods lately. Sean Harris turns up as some kind of ginger devil looking character too, with the expected intensity I've grown quite fond of lately.
 

Dirty Hipsters

This is how we praise the sun!
Legacy
Feb 7, 2011
7,885
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'Merica
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3 children in a trench coat
Blue Velvet
I first saw Blue Velvet at a revival screening at my local independent cinema, for the film's 30th anniversary in 2016. I sat on the front row, very close to a very large screen. The experience had quite a profound effect on me. The question is, does that "blimey!" factor hold up years later on a small screen in my bedroom? Yes, it basically does. Blue Velvet is a properly full on and nasty bit of neo-noir directed by David Lynch. It's about a college student played by Kyle MacLachlan who finds a severed ear and decides to find out where it came from. The cast are all very good, but Dennis Hopper absolutely steals the show with his terrifyingly intense performance as Frank. It's an electrifying bit of cinema that gets under your skin and sticks with you long after it's over.
One of Lynch's best movies. Not just because it's filmed very well, but it's one of the few movies he's done that's straight forward and easy enough to understand that you're able to enjoy it completely on a first viewing without necessitating a deep dive into the themes and symbolism.
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
Palm Springs (2021)

This a rather knowing "Groundhog Day" style romcom featuring Andy Samberg as Nyles and Cristin Miliotti as Sarah. You know it's very self-aware from the trailer, which involves Samberg's character explaining "It's one of those infinite time loop situations you might have heard about." So, in many ways, it is of course much as you'd expect from this sort of thing. Samberg is as solidly ever-likeable as ever and a good person to hang this sort of film around, and Miliotti is likewise good lead to hold the other end of the rom up. However it has a darker, more serious and deeper look at people and life than Groundhog Day, which is as light as the finest puff pastry by comparison: the nihilism and damage of the neverending loop on its victims, and the expression that life is about moving on, and what really makes a relationship. It's funny, entertaining, and really quite satisfying, so a big thumbs up from me.
 
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Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
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One of Lynch's best movies. Not just because it's filmed very well, but it's one of the few movies he's done that's straight forward and easy enough to understand that you're able to enjoy it completely on a first viewing without necessitating a deep dive into the themes and symbolism.
Maybe. I think some of Lynch's films you lose something by trying too hard to understand it - or perhaps that their understandability is very deliberately obscured, and part of the intent is for the watcher to not make sense of it all. I think this is perhaps a lot less satisfying for many people, though.
 

Baffle

Elite Member
Oct 22, 2016
3,459
2,746
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Ready or Not. Obvious but actually pretty good. I might even have given this review already.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Didn't grab me tbh. It wasn't bad as such, but I was half on my phone for quite a bit of it.
 

Johnny Novgorod

Bebop Man
Legacy
Feb 9, 2012
18,466
3,005
118
Driving Miss Daisy

An insufferable old bag crashes her car. Instead of having her committed, as he does eventually, her son gets her a driver. She proceeds to ***** and belittle him for 30 years, which somehow blossoms into the only friendship she ever had. Hoke is way too patient, though maybe that's the point. As the years go by you see how the relationship develops for the better in subtle, believable ways. This is sappy and sentimental territory but I never got the feeling the movie was distorting reality into whimsical fantasy the way the average Hallmark movie does. I got hooked on these two characters - nothing much happens throughout the movie, but it's entertaining to watch them grow, and the performances are great.
 

gorfias

Unrealistic but happy
Legacy
May 13, 2009
7,083
1,849
118
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USA
I have HBO Max and could have watched "Godzilla vs. Kong" on HBO Max but a but wanted to support our theaters and see it there so I've avoided spoilers like mad and not watched it online. I saw it tonight at a theater with my buds also determined to support our theaters, and it was with ATMOS sound that pounded through our skulls like mad!
I liked it. It should have been shorter. Cut out almost all of the human stuff. Turn your brain off and just enjoy watching a giant monkey punching a giant lizard in the face. 7.5/10
 

Asita

Answer Hazy, Ask Again Later
Legacy
Jun 15, 2011
3,198
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USA
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Male
Breakfast at Tiffany's

...What did I just watch?

Ok, that's a bit unfair. Setting aside the aspects that really haven't aged well (*cough* Mickey Rooney), it is acted well enough and the characters are by and large likeable enough. It's not that the plot is difficult to follow...it's just...meandering and at times bizarre in the narrative choices.

Chief among these is Hepburn's character, who we learn was basically tricked into marrying a man who had children about her own age when she was 13 years old (Yeah...holy shit), and who still was trying (surprisingly nicely, actually) to get her to 'come home to him and her children' ('her children' being his from his prior marriage). According to her, the marriage was a mistake and long-since annulled, but her ex-husband refuses to accept it. So it's not exactly difficult to look at her actions and figure out that she's afraid of romantic commitment and for fucking understandable reasons...or rather it would be if one of her subplots wasn't about her trying to find a wealthy man to marry.

...I'm sorry...what?



No joke. She throws a party, and immediately zeroes in on a portly man whom she recognizes as "the ninth richest man in America under 50". A few scenes later she announces her intent to marry the man, only to laugh it off later when it's revealed that he married a wealthy heiress because he himself was actually in tremendous debt. ...And not too long after that she starts planning to move to Brazil with another party guest who also apparently has a lot of money to his name. Now in fairness it makes sense for the character to be looking for get rich quick schemes considering her motivation for the money. However, the character also explicitly, repeatedly, and emphatically rejects the idea of 'belonging' to anyone, drawing comparison to the cat she lets live in her apartment (whom she refuses to name or think of as hers precisely because of this same aversion), so the plan of rushing to the altar to be a wealthy wife is pretty bizarre choice of motivation for the character.

Easily the biggest flub, however, is with Peppard's character, who plays opposite her as her love interest. After the romantic subplot is well and truly underway, he declares on a few occasions that because he loves her, she belongs to him.

*ahem*

WHAT???

I just...what? That's a tone deaf line that sets off a few alarm bells at the best of times, but at that point in the movie, the guy knows her history. Who thought that line was a good idea? I get that the intent is to address the aforementioned fear of commitment, but that ranks pretty high on the list of bad ways to do it. Moreover, it's both internally inconsistent (by that stated logic, Hepburn's character doesn't belong to Peppard's, but instead to her ex-husband) and completely backwards. If you love someone then it's said that your heart belongs to them, not the other way around! I feel I could rant about this one repeated line for hours, because goddamn is it a doozy.

Anyways, flaws notwithstanding, it's a tricky film to give a ranking for because on the one hand it's a meandering mess, but it's not painfully so. It's just kinda...there. I hesitate to call it a bad movie, but I also don't think it qualifies as an especially good one.
 
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gorfias

Unrealistic but happy
Legacy
May 13, 2009
7,083
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USA
The Piano
Jane Campion's darling about a mute Scottish woman Ada (Holly Hunter) who gets shipped off to New Zealand in the mid 1800s with her daughter (Anna Paquin) and a nice piano that she plays like it's the voice she's lost. Her arranged marriage to Alisdair (Sam Neill) doesn't get to go anywhere before another lost soul George (Harvey Keitel) is drawn to Ada. The viewer's mind wanders and ponders just how these people work, what they think about, why they do what they do and how they ended up there, but the film is grounded in ways that makes you sympathize with (almost) all of them. Subtlety of the surroundings is as important as the words that come out of the characters' mouths, even more so, for what people say is mostly rubbish anyway. I'm also glad that Campion changed her mind about the ending: she originally wanted Ada to drown. 10/10
Great movie. Back when it came out, I recall a feminist columnist reviewing it with disgust, angry that the movie has any sympathy what so ever for the male characters in it. The movie lends itself to a terrific amount of MRA analysis as well as feminist. Example to ponder: how would the plot of this movie have been changed had it been about a flute? Good call that this movie was much more nuanced than that columnists would have it. I am glad Campion did not get the ending she wanted.
instead of the selfish act of suicide, Ada grows as a human being.
.
 

Johnny Novgorod

Bebop Man
Legacy
Feb 9, 2012
18,466
3,005
118
Escape Room

Six characters have to escape six escape rooms, each with a timer, a theme and some kind of death trap. Movie gets the most mileage it can from this high concept and you get what you paid for. Fair enough. The ending is a mess though as it spends the last 20 minutes building up a sequel and expanding the scope of the narrative past the point I gave a shit.
 
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Piscian

Elite Member
Apr 28, 2020
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I watched a neat little horror film last night on netflix called What Lies Below (2020)

This is another interesting one where critics are being very kind to it while audiences are throwing popcorn. The plot is that a teenage girl is returning home from school, specifically to her family's cabin on a lake only to discover her mom has begun dating a younger biologist working at the lake. The story starts off with the girl "suddenly hitting puberty" at meeting this guy and then starting to be very concerned that he might be a pervert, scummy, crazy. What's splitting audiences is primarily this insane turn the movie takes 2nd act and that it ends on a cliffhanger. Audiences reeaally hate movies that end without perfect closure. As a scifi horror fan this didn't bother me at all. I almost clapped. I love when movies do a good job of getting a reaction out of viewers. I was like "are you shitting mee??" at the ending and thats a goodsign I'm gonna speak positively about a film. I can't expand on the story without ruining it.

The film has some problems no doubt. There's a reason why it's barely maintaining fresh on RT. While the mom and daughter have a refreshingly open and positive relationship the mom is played a bit too naively. Its not quite "How did that idiot not see this coming" stupid, she's just not 100% realistic. Then again I don't know a ton of mom's idk. The most distracting issue is that Ema Horvath is playing the daughter who is a bit of an oddball. She's 27. At points in the story it seems like the daughters age must have been re-written a few times. She sometimes seems like she's barely 13 then 15 then she's graduating high school, but at the wrong camera angle she might seem clearly in her 20s. After so much mental gymnastics you end up just saying she's around 17-18, but has some severe social limitations. This all justifiable by the dialog in the films, it's just a tad distracting. The actress is great, but I think she'd aged out of the script.

i'd recommend it to anyone who likes stuff like "The Void". It's not by any means a great movie, but it's just weird enough to be enjoyable for folks that enjoy bizarre films.
 

Piscian

Elite Member
Apr 28, 2020
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Escape Room

Six characters have to escape six escape rooms, each with a timer, a theme and some kind of death trap. Movie gets the most mileage it can from this high concept and you get what you paid for. Fair enough. The ending is a mess though as it spends the last 20 minutes building up a sequel and expanding the scope of the narrative past the point I gave a shit.
I think the twist kinda saved the movie, but I must not have given that much of a shit either because I barely remember it.
 

Johnny Novgorod

Bebop Man
Legacy
Feb 9, 2012
18,466
3,005
118
I think the twist kinda saved the movie, but I must not have given that much of a shit either because I barely remember it.
The 'twist' itself is pretty foregone: it's all a shady high stakes gambling racket. What doesn't work for me is that the movie doesn't end when it should (like Speed going on once everybody's off the bus) but instead picks up 6 months later and goes into an in-depth detour about the organization and what the survivors are gonna do about it, just long enough that it feels like you're watching the first act of a new movie.
 
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Piscian

Elite Member
Apr 28, 2020
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The 'twist' itself is pretty foregone: it's all a shady high stakes gambling racket. What doesn't work for me is that the movie doesn't end when it should (like Speed going on once everybody's off the bus) but instead picks up 6 months later and goes into an in-depth detour about the organization and what the survivors are gonna do about it, just long enough that it feels like you're watching the first act of a new movie.
I thought I remembered it as it being a worldwide thing or something, but I've already forgot 99% for the movie. I could be confusing it with "The Belko Experiment" which was a tad more memorable.
 

Samtemdo8

Elite Member
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Apr 25, 2020
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Watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990.

And now I feel old because this was my childhood movie.

A movie from the pre-CGI/Greenscreen/Digital era. And everything had this dark and gritty and real look to it.
 

Samtemdo8

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Apr 25, 2020
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Still the best of the live-action TMNT films. This, and Out of the Shadows are my favorite of the live action films.
Haven't seen the second movie, but I didn't hate the first Michael Bay movie (Even though he was Producer)
 
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