Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

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Samtemdo8

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So I just watched Dungeons and Dragons the 2000 film with Marlon Waynes and Jeremy Irons.

...I think I found my favorite Bad movie. And its all thanks to this SPECIAL performance by the one and only Jeremy Irons:

 

gorfias

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No Time to Die on Amazon Prime

Over long, too talky, plot holes so large as to make much of the plot something that shouldn't have happened but still has enough action, production values and good character acting to make this a C+ for me.

 
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PsychedelicDiamond

Wild at Heart and weird on top
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It Comes (2018)

Japanese supernatural thriller by Tetsuya Nakashima. Nakashima is one of those off beat japanese directors. You know, the Sion Sono, Takashi Miike kind. All striking colors, ambivalent attitude towards genre, corny sense of humor and, more often than not, bouts of intense but somewhat cartoonish violence. This is the second movie of his I've seen, after his early 00's not-quite-lesbian comedy Kamikaze Girls, which I remember as a very charming little flick. It Comes is his most recent outing, having embraced a more gritty and violent, yet no less colorful and cartoony style of film in his latter career.

It Comes is a genre bending ghost story about a young family who find themselves haunted by a bloodthirsty demon. Sound like the premise of a horror movie, and that's what it's labelled as most places, but that description doesn't really do it justice. It's the sort of tonally erratic rollercoaster that is able to change genre at more or less the drop of a hat. It Comes is a movie that goes a lot of places and I will say, for how many places it goes, it is very succesful in keeping its themes straight.
At its heart, It Comes is a story about family life, the ghost story side of things being so intrinsically tied to it that it serves to complement its musings on marriage and parenthood, rather than intruding upon it. And, mind, it isn't exactly subtle about its treatment of these topics. It Comes presents us with a deadbeat dad more interested in projecting the image of an idyllic family life on the internet than actually putting in the work to live it, a mother who passes on her own childhood trauma to her daughter, and a demon summoned by a neglected child.
Most western film makers would treat this basic plot as the foundation for a slow paced, downbeat arthouse horror movie, Nakashima, on the other hand, decided to have a lot of fun with it. The movie shifts quickly from comically idyllic, and comically phony depictions of family life, scored by sentimental piano music, to foreboding dream sequences, to violent dismemberment, to scenes of domestic drama, to elaborate occultist rituals. It's also generally just one of the most colourful horror movies you are ever likely to see. What would be a tense chamber drama in other hands, Nakashima turns into a baroque expressionist romp going through all manners of unorthodox visuals, events and editing.
This approach might not appeal to everyone, as Nakashima's playfulness quite often crosses the line to indulgence, but it's in those indulgences in which It Comes finds some its most memorable moments and setpieces. The finale, dealing with a grand excorsism, puts most Hollywood productions to shame in terms of pure inventiveness. It's a movie that changes it main viewpoint protagonist about three times. It never settles into anything remotely approaching a predictable rythm or ever stops having fun with itself, but most importantly, despite all its formalist excesses, it never loses sight of what it's actually trying to say. And, you know, that's a balancing act I can respect.

It Comes is a playful, solidly written and very entertaining ghost story. I never found it very scary but it makes up for that in pure creativity and visual inventiveness. It dances through various different tones, viewpoints and genres with a gleeful energy that that makes it hard to not be engaged with it. It's an incredibly entertaining, if pulpy, little thriller about the demons of every day family life that ends in what has to be one of the most impressive visual setpieces ever put into this kind of movie. It's just generally a pretty good time.
 

thebobmaster

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Watched a "horror" movie last night called Spookies. I can certainly say this. It was definitely a movie. I was not surprised to hear that it was a production mess, and even less surprised to find out that it was one of those cases where they filmed part of a movie, and then decided to essentially stick a different movie in there to finish up the run-time. A lot of disconnected scenes, but some surprisingly good practical effects, although the same cannot be said for the acting.

It's also probably the only movie with a scene that prominently features a farting zombie, so...there's that. Not sure I'd recommend it, unless you want one of those fascinating trainwreck production type of horror movies to watch.
 
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Johnny Novgorod

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Misery

I did not remember Lauren Bacall being in this movie! It's so bizarre to me to think Bogie's squeeze from 1944 would be up and about in such a lively (if small) role in 1990.

It goes without saying that James Caan and Kathy Bates are wonderful in this. My only "problem" is that I enjoy Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes a little too much for the character to be as frightening or hateful as it rightfully should be. Same thing with Nicholson in The Shining. I relish their performances so much I can't help but just smile watching them.
 

thebobmaster

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Misery

I did not remember Lauren Bacall being in this movie! It's so bizarre to me to think Bogie's squeeze from 1944 would be up and about in such a lively (if small) role in 1990.

It goes without saying that James Caan and Kathy Bates are wonderful in this. My only "problem" is that I enjoy Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes a little too much for the character to be as frightening or hateful as it rightfully should be. Same thing with Nicholson in The Shining. I relish their performances so much I can't help but just smile watching them.
Kathy Bates earned the HELL out of that Oscar. Fun fact: The sheriff who gets shot in the movie, in the book, is a deputy who gets first stabbed repeatedly by a stake, then finished off by getting his head run over by a riding lawnmower. Apparently, Kathy Bates was disappointed at the change, because she was looking forward to filming that scene.

And yes, that does in fact mean that she shot the sheriff, but she did not kill the deputy.


OK, just once. "HE DIDN'T GET OUT OF THE COCKADOODIE CAR!"
 

Xprimentyl

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Jurassic Park: Dominion: Whatever / Great

I saw it. And as DJ Khaled would say, it was simply...

1655382860387.png

Personally, I'm over Jurassic Park. Each film is just people making bad decision after bad decision, shit goes down, dinosaurs run rampant, everyone runs around panicking (like, what did you expect, assholes?), an ostensibly benevolent T-Rex shows up to save the day at the last minute, and humans resolve not to fuck with nature anymore and try to reasonably coexist with their mistake... until the next movie where the cycle repeats.

Watch it if you want to, but if you've seen ANY other JP film, you've seen this one already.

Oh, one good thing about the film, there's a scene with dimetrodons, my favorite dinosaur. It's only my favorite because 35 years ago, my 2nd grade teacher randomly distributed dinosaur-shaped erasers to all of us to research and write a report about, and I got the dimetrodon. Had a soft spot for it ever since.
 

Hawki

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Benediction (4/10)

Bloody hell, this film had its head up its arse.

The irony in saying that is that I may be proving one of the film's possible ideas right - that society has gotten stupider. Is it that the film's bad, or that I'm just too dumb to get it? Based on critical and audience reviews, that may be the case, but, well, meh.

Anyway, the film deals with the life of Siegfried Sassoon - a WWI poet, ranging from his service in the war, to around the 1950s. Okay, fair enough, except there's no real plot drive, it's more a series of relationships, jumping between time periods, and spending time to narrate poetry. And, to be fair, the poetry in of itself is very good, but this isn't a poetry recital, it's a film. It reminds me of that Emily Dickinson film, in that both are indulgent, both feel like stage plays grafted into film (nothing interesting is done with the camera, all the sets are sparse), and while Sassoon isn't nearly as obnoxious a character as Dickinson, that doesn't make him a good one.

So, yeah. Not a fan. And regardless of what the film does, better alternatives exist. Human cost of WWI? Persecution of homosexuality? Generation gap between the Boomers and their parents/grandparents? The film touches on these things, but doesn't do a good job with any of them, and better alternatives exist. Want WWI? Watch 1917. Want homosexuality issues? Watch Imitation Game. And so on, and so forth.

But then, maybe I just don't "get it."
 

Ringo

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Want WWI? Watch 1917. Want homosexuality issues? Watch Imitation Game.
I haven't seen Benediction, but I'm under the impression that I'd like it a lot based on this lol
 
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Ezekiel

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C'mon C'mon (2021)

Joaquin Phoenix is a tubby. He doesn't need to be a tubby for this movie. Can't think of any reason. I don't think it makes him more personable or realistic.

I can't prove it and I'm not gonna look it up and I might be way off, but I suspect the director watched Alice in the Cities (1974, Wim Wenders) before writing this movie. Another 1.66:1 black and white movie about a man traveling through America with a child who is not his own. Here the man is the uncle, who interviews children about what they're afraid of and what they think about the future and what they feel (while having trouble understanding the boy), and the boy is much smarter and more a wise-ass/precocious than Alice. I didn't think like this when I was a kid and I don't remember other kids acting like this. Alice in the Cities felt truer. Not just because of the kid. Kind of liked this, but I don't know if I'd call it good. Guessing the critics loved it. Not looking it up.

I knew this was an Arri-Alexa movie without even looking at the IMDB specs or checking in the credits. I just knew it. It has that same grey, even look as 2018's Roma. Not a fan. Just doesn't have that texture it would if they used film or maybe manipulated it more in the computer after.

The mother's face reminded me of French New Wave actor Jean-Pierre Léaud.

 
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Gordon_4

The Big Engine
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Jurassic Park: Dominion: Whatever / Great

I saw it. And as DJ Khaled would say, it was simply...

View attachment 6419

Personally, I'm over Jurassic Park. Each film is just people making bad decision after bad decision, shit goes down, dinosaurs run rampant, everyone runs around panicking (like, what did you expect, assholes?), an ostensibly benevolent T-Rex shows up to save the day at the last minute, and humans resolve not to fuck with nature anymore and try to reasonably coexist with their mistake... until the next movie where the cycle repeats.

Watch it if you want to, but if you've seen ANY other JP film, you've seen this one already.

Oh, one good thing about the film, there's a scene with dimetrodons, my favorite dinosaur. It's only my favorite because 35 years ago, my 2nd grade teacher randomly distributed dinosaur-shaped erasers to all of us to research and write a report about, and I got the dimetrodon. Had a soft spot for it ever since.
Okay, Dimetridons are dope as fuck but sadly not a dinosaur :(. Missed the dinosaurs by about 40million years.

Still, nice to see it getting its due :)
 
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gorfias

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Okay, Dimetridons are dope as fuck but sadly not a dinosaur :(. Missed the dinosaurs by about 40million years.

Still, nice to see it getting its due :)
And so I've learned a new thing:


"Not Technically a Dinosaur"

View attachment 6423


Looks like a dinosaur though.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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Titanic 1997 on Netflix.

Dunno why I ended up watching this tonight but holy moly this is a fantastic movie. A+

To the kids that haven't seen this, watch it.


…I…Can’t tell if serious…?

I mean yeah it’s impressive but also, kinda surprised that there’s still someone out there who was unaware of it after 25 years. Remember all the memes? Billion dollar box office records? “I’m the king of the world!” ‘n all?

No?

Ah well.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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Top Gun (5/10)

So for reasons I'm sure are entirely coincidental, Top Gun aired on TV a few nights ago. Having seen Maverick, gave it a watch. As you can tell, I didn't think much of it.

Let's be clear - this is a stupid movie. The characters are stock, the dialogue is banal, the themes are basic, the music for non-action scenes is wallpaper music (to borrow the term), the plot is basic to the point of almost non-existence, even the directing is extremely simple. If not for a key factor, this would easily slip into "bad" territory.

Still, this is Top Gun, and yeah, when the fighters are actually, um, top gunning, it's actually pretty neat. I knew the outcome ahead of time, but credit where it's due, any time a fighter is in the air, even in training sequences, this movie is actually pretty neat. Even all these years later, watching the final dogfight at the end had me in rapt attention. It's in these moments that the film really comes together, but the problem is that anytime the film isn't showing aerial combat, it's utterly banal.

So, yeah. Not much of a fan. If I'm comparing this to Maverick, Maverick's a better film on every level. Top Gun may have done it first, but Maverick did it better, not just in its action, but also in the quality of its writing, directing, etc. The key difference is that Maverick could be engaging outside the cockpit (not always, but a lot of the time), while Top Gun fails to be so.

Also, random thoughts:

-I've heard Top Gun be accused of propaganda, but TBH, I don't think that's really the case. If anything, Maverick is more propagandistic, in that its core plot is a first strike against a "rogue state's" uranium site, never once questioning the ethics of such an action. Top Gun is at least fairly honest in that "the enemy" is the USSR (never named, true, but one can figure it out), the rules of engagement are followed, and at the end, the Ruskies seem to be the aggressors.

-So apparently recruitment for the Navy surged after this film was released. I can't help but wonder how many applicants actually ended up flying planes, and how many ended up as deckhands. 0_0

-Holy shit, this film has got "the gays." I don't mean that in a bad way, I'm actually kind of surprised that it could get away with so many scenes of athletic men wearing towls in locker rooms or playing beach volleyball. Even if you don't ship Maverick and Iceman and just see them as buddies, what chemistry they have is still better than Maverick and Charlie (who's just your stock romantic interest).
Well, that, and it’s something for GF’s and wives to gawk at when their BF’s and husbands drag them to see it.
 
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XsjadoBlaydette

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Mad God - (Shudder)
Do you ever wonder whether those stop-motion animators for kids' shows sometimes grow a little fed up of being restricted to keeping their work family friendly and sanitised for inoffensive consumption, yet brewing underneath, professionally repressed all that time are increasingly agitated desires to create sordid, mind flaying nightmares of screaming mutilated meat entwined with byzantine layers of concrete, pipe and steel rubble? And all it would take is one publisher to ask if they wanted total freedom on their work one time for them to cry "Yeeees, YEEEEEEESSS! I...I have? SUCH SIGHTS. Tooooo? show Youuuuuu! Ehehehehahahahahahaoohhahahehe! Yes."?
So anyway, that is what this filthy unregulated trip into the most unsettling of Cronenbergian hellscapes ends up feeling like. Mostly done through stop-motion though of course. There's almost no dialogue, but the occasional human actor can be quite jarring before adjusting to the fact that kinda everything is jarring, but admirable attention is applied to the many angles of unpleasantry here. It's not for everyone, but it's weird, muted and often bafflingly gross enough to boldly claim it's distinct identity while allowing the viewer to interpret however they want. Truly fucking disgusting. Loved it. I need a hundred soothing brain showers now.


 
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gorfias

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…I…Can’t tell if serious…?

I mean yeah it’s impressive but also, kinda surprised that there’s still someone out there who was unaware of it after 25 years. Remember all the memes? Billion dollar box office records? “I’m the king of the world!” ‘n all?

No?

Ah well.
I've seen it. Among other times, when it was 1st in the theaters. I have no idea why I bothered rewatching it the other night but glad I did. It is hugely entertaining with a lot of stunning things going on. I am with another earlier poster who notes the slander this movie delves into of the ships crew, a named one in particular. This after Cameron nit pickingly insisting that the plates be correct. Just not the people.

The older you get the more you will become surprised what young'ens have not seen. For me, the shock came when talking to some kids who did not know who the Monkees are. More recently on Amazon's "The Boys", Hughie, a young adult male apparently does not know how Kelly LeBrock is. I think Phoebe Cates too. I don't doubt there are plenty that have not seen this movie. They should.
 
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hanselthecaretaker

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Kathy Bates earned the HELL out of that Oscar. Fun fact: The sheriff who gets shot in the movie, in the book, is a deputy who gets first stabbed repeatedly by a stake, then finished off by getting his head run over by a riding lawnmower. Apparently, Kathy Bates was disappointed at the change, because she was looking forward to filming that scene.

And yes, that does in fact mean that she shot the sheriff, but she did not kill the deputy.


OK, just once. "HE DIDN'T GET OUT OF THE COCKADOODIE CAR!"
One would think it’d have been a snowblower that gets the head, considering the whole time spent in captivity was winter. I haven’t read the book though.


Anyways, Top Gun: Maverick.


4 out of 5th gen fighter jets.

Let’s get the goofy stuff out of the way, in that the plot is very vaguely setting up a means to an end, and I get the impression that with the way things are lately IRL, it was intentional. But that really doesn’t matter here, because this movie is ultimately a story about two characters learning to forgive, in their own respective ways. There is a surprising amount of heart here that’s wrapped up in some whizbang jet action that had me squirming in my seat like Dennis Rodman playing pinball. The production values are also stellar; enough so to warrant a preface from Mr. Cruise himself, in fact. I mean, the training involved was legit stuff.

It’s still injected with a healthy dose of Hollywood though. Let’s face it, real ace pilots probably have hundreds of hours if not more for years to gain proficiency before they can even attempt anything a fraction as daring as what they’re ultimately prepping for here. Yet the way they pull it off after a what seems like perpetual fail state is by watching their legendary teacher complete an impromptu test run. Ehh. You kinda just have to submit to being along for the ride, which it delivers on as a movie that’s basically meant to be seen in a good theater.

There’s just enough human drama mixed in that’s done in a way to give it a feel good vibe too, and everyone played their parts well. I barely recall the original but I suppose it’ll be worth checking out for reference while it’s still on Netflix.
 
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Hawki

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Yet the way they pull it off after nothing but hopeless failures is by watching their legendary teacher complete an impromptu test run.
I'd hardly call them "hopeless failures," but it did get me wondering what happened after that. Like, "okay, it's neat that Maverick can do the run, that doesn't necessarily mean that we can. You're going to factor that in, right?"
 
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hanselthecaretaker

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I'd hardly call them "hopeless failures," but it did get me wondering what happened after that. Like, "okay, it's neat that Maverick can do the run, that doesn't necessarily mean that we can. You're going to factor that in, right?"
I mean yeah, they kept failing and failing to the point of almost dying but then Maverick swoops in to show them how it’s done and the next thing we know…Mission Time, and they get it done. It almost felt like he was training them for a new Mission: Impossible in a way, ironically.
 
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