Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[Bartholen]

Singin' in the Rain, 6/10

This is one of the most quintessential movie musicals of all time. It's about a movie star and his compatriots having to deal with the sudden shift to sound cinema in 1927. In addition he has to deal with a pretend publicity romance with his harpy of a "girlfriend" who's egotistical, selfish and incompetent to boot, and his sudden crush with a woman whose car he happens to fall into.

I really wanted to like this movie more, but the beginning of the movie promises a drastically different movie than what it ends up being. Despite its G rating and squeaky clean presentation, there's some pretty sharp jabs at the showbiz industry, celebrity and stardom. It's genuiney funny with snappy, fast-paced dialogue and clever wordplay, and the choreography and musical numbers are genuinely wonderful. Having taken some dance lessons recently the amount of coordination and level of physicality in the extraordinarily long takes is nothing short of marvelous. The romance between the main character and the love interest is also genuinely romantic and sweet.

Sadly almost all of that starts to fall off the more the movie goes on. The romance is resolved quickly, there's no character growth or conflict. It's just boom, now they're in love. The satire of the entertainment industry is present less and less. And saddest of all, the musical numbers become more and more pointless. In good musicals - like the Disney renaissance era movies for example - the musical numbers are absolutely essential to the plot. If you removed them the story simply wouldn't work. But here not only do most of the musical numbers not present any new information, some of them could be cut out wholesale with zero difference to the plot. What I was most reminded of were pointless fight scenes in action movies, and that quote from MacBeth: "...it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". Now, it could be that sensibilities were simply different back in the 50s and audiences were content to just watch stuff happen on screen regardless of significance, justification or impact on the plot, but it just hasn't aged well at all. I was tempted by a horrible thought while watching it: did the dance numbers in Showgirls have more significance on characters and plot than the musical numbers in this? And I'm not sure if I can take the answer.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★ review of Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992)

“Alright, alright. Anyways, what happened around here?” “Well, a bunch of kids killed all the adults in town. Just your basic Sunday afternoon in the Bible Belt.” This film's production was about as smooth as you'd expect from a pretty low budget sequel to a film that didn't exactly light the...

letterboxd.com

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★ review of Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)

“Dude, there’s no way I can do infinity push-ups.” “Maybe if he lets us do them girly style?” This film didn't have much of a troubled production, as far as I can tell. One interesting thing to note, however, is that William Sadler was very eager to play his part in this movie, as he was a fan...

letterboxd.com

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Angel Heart (1987)

Occult film noir, starring Mickey Rourke as sleazy New York private detective Harry Angel in the 50's. A mysterious client with the very inconspicuous name Louis Cyphre, played by Robert DeNiro, sets Angel up with a suspiciously well paid missing persons case to find out the whereabouts of lounge singer Johnny Favorite.

Angel Heart ist a very stylish movie, to the point it's quite easy to overlook that it's also rather dumb. There is an extremely solid setup there, a detective movie with a supernatural gothic horror angle, which moves from New York State to a voodoo infused New Orleans. Accordingly, there's also quite a bit of cool imagery in there. Sadly, the actual mystery is a rather lackluster one, resolved in a fairly underwhelming way and, not to put too a fine a point on it, just about the bluntest exposition dump I've seen in a while.

One of the main issues is that the twist just doesn't make a whole lot of sense considering the story that precedes it. The fact that it was resolved as bluntly as it was certainly didn't help. I dunno, it's just one of those movies where the resolution cheapens most of the genuinely good stuff that led up to it. And don't get me wrong, there is a decent bit of genuinely good stuff in there. DeNiro plays a delightfully smug devil, Rourke 's sleazebag detective routine is as infuriating as it is entertaining, Lisa Bonet gets naked (allegedly, this is what cost her her role on the Cosby Show) and it looks really, really nice. It's one of the movies quoted by the developers as one of the artistic inspirations for the Silent Hill series. You ever wondered why there are so many random ventilators in the Silent Hill otherworld? This movie's the primary reason.

I dunno, I didn't hate it altogether, I was just kind of underwhelmed. The payoff just didn't hit right for me. It's one of those movies that just feel too deliberately constructed around their central twist. I did kinda like the final scene that was intercut with the credits but, honestly, the story just didn't work for me. There is good stuff in there, I genuinely dug the whole Southern Gothic aesthethic the latter half had going and there were some cool performances and cool visuals in it, they just don't quite manage to elevate the material.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Gladiator II

Too much like the first one: dead wife, enslaved, purchased by old gladiator trainer, showboats around the provinces, travels to Rome, fights at the Colosseum (fights animals, fights a champion, reenacts historical battles), plot to dethrone the decadent emperor thickens until it's foiled, army marches uselessly towards Rome, etc. This wouldn't be half as bad if Paul Mescal brought anything to the table as Maximus 2.0, or if the movie didn't keep inviting comparisons by constantly flashing back to the first movie like we're watching TV (and making me miss the gorgeous bleached-out photography from the early '00s instead of the dull Netflix catalogue lighting).

To be clear it was entertaining, the 2 and a half hours just breezed past, and I liked Denzel and the twin emperors. The action was generally on point, but I posit that if you cannot convincingly render a monkey in 2024 then maybe don't build your big action set-piece around fighting a whole bunch of 'em. Even the design of the thing felt more alien than historically-minded, something that would look more at home in Frank Miller's 300.

I don't think the movie gets there, emotionally. Maximus wants to avenge the death of his wife and kid. The kid is trampled as the soldiers break into their home, then the wife is raped and hung. This is home invasion/sexploitation nightmare fuel, and it motivates everything Maximus does until the story ends. Mescalus only loses a wife though, and she goes down fighting like so many other warriors during a battle that doesn't have any personal edge to it. Pascal doesn't even fire the arrow, but when Mescalus comes to he's somehow sworn personal revenge against the dude. And that sense of outrage just isn't with the audience. And without spoiling things, Mescalus' goals and motivations keep changing throughout the movie - rather unimpressively. The second half of the movie suffers a nasty case of "Oh, is this what we're doing now?".

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★½ review of Star Wars (1977)

"The Force will be with you, always.” Oh, boy, is this a fun production to talk about. George Lucas had been kicking around the idea of a space fantasy story for quite some time, and had originally planned to have this be an adaptation of Flash Gordon, only to discover that someone else had...

letterboxd.com

Fair warning, this is a long review even by my standards.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★½ review of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

“You fabulous thing. You crawled out of a pitiless grave, deeper than hell. Only one thing that is going to do that for you. Not hope. Hate. No shame in hate. It's one of the greatest forces of nature.” This film had a bit of a troubled production, as you might guess from the length of time...

letterboxd.com

 

[Xprimentyl]

Hitman: Agent 47 (2015):

Universally panned, I know, but I enjoyed it. Sue me.

 

[Bedinsis]

Hitman: Agent 47 (2015):

Universally panned, I know, but I enjoyed it. Sue me.

What did you like about it?

 

[Xprimentyl]

What did you like about it?

The action mostly, blood and guts. And Rupert Friend pulled off a good cinematic hitman. Not necessarily a good "Agent 47" from the games who has so little characterization, a good Agent 47 would have been hard to do let alone enjoy.

 

[Bartholen]

Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, 10/10

This is as good as it gets. It's a good candidate for the best animated film of the entire 2000s, and easily one of the greatest of all time. Wallace and Gromit are running an anti-rabbit pest control business, and Wallace gets it in his head that he can use "a bit of harmless brain alteration" to get rid of the problem once and for all.

It's a film where I'm just smiling from ear to ear from frame one. Every scene, every moment, every frame just oozes pure charm that we rarely get to see these days. There's a sense of texture and physicality to the handmade animation, sets and characters that CGI is still yet to replicate. The characters, the dialogue, the gags are all just pure wonder. There are tons of hilarious background gags and puns. On the technical side it's just a marvel. It's wonderfully silly while simultaneously being a genuinely well made horror homage. When it wants to go horror, it commits to the bit with proper lighting, cinematography and atmosphere. It's like a greatest hits of classic horror tropes ranging from monster movies to religious films like The Exorcist, mad science like the Fly, there's even a few slasher-esque moments. Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes are hamming it up properly. I can think of only one minor criticism, where a story twist is introduced, and then almost immediately superseded by another twist. In a movie with otherwise pitch-perfect pacing it stands out. Beyond that there's absolutely nothing I'd change. This is up there with Spirited Away, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the very best of Pixar. Insanely amazing, just an absolute marvel of a film in every respect.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★½ review of Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)

“Well, like my pa always said: you reap what you sow.” This film has the distinction, if you want to call it that, of being the first movie for a couple of actors who would become known for bigger things. The smaller name of those actors is Nicholas Brendon, who Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans...

letterboxd.com