Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[Johnny Novgorod]

The Bikeriders

Wants to be the Goodfellas of "the golden age of bikeriding", before the junkies and the 'Nam psychos ruined it for the rest of us. We get the freeze-frames, the inside baseball audio tour (Jodie Comer, whining in a spot-on Mira Sorvino), a dozen or so character introductions. Movie paints a picture but in practice it never quite takes shape. Bikeriding is supposed to convey a rebel lifestyle but here it feels more like a hobby. Ok, you hang around at bars and go on picnics with your BFFs when the weather allows it. So what? Seeing it 'devolve' into vicious tribalism feels a little like watching the newspeople duke it out in Anchorman. The story supposedly centers on the Austin Butler character but it's less about him and more about these two sides yanking him in opposite directions: Comer as the old ball and chain and Tom Hardy as the gang leader. Essentially both of them want his dick, but where Comer wants to ride him, Hardy wants to ride *with* him.

Based on a photography book from the 1970s. Figures the story would be about yay thin.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Emelia Perez
negative infinity / 10

ok... ok....
lol
holy sh**t

I was vaguely of the cONtroverSies with representation and language and all this stuff, and the hype followed by vicious backlash around this movie, but not the details so I was curious and heck it's on Netflix anyway.

Well what I was not expecting was the absolute shambolic nature of the production and presentation. There is acting but it's laughable. There is dialogue and while I'm not a native Spanish speaker it still came across as stilted and inhuman. Entire scene are poorly lit, awkwardly framed, uncomposed. Maybe it's an "artistic" decision but it really just seems like crap film-making.
And the songs... dear lord. I felt like I was watching people discuss ideas for songs as if they were writing them, not watching the finished product. I legit thought for a sec I accidentally selected to watch some making-of documentary of the movie instead of the actual movie.

I also have a thousand other complaints but you get the point, this movie just plain sucks. Halfway through I just embraced it as a so-bad-it's-good experience.

Just had to check the IMDb, and caught one user review that mentions it has 13 Oscar nom’s. Had to check that too and yup, it’s leading the way. Apparently it’s been deemed a “scandalous” controversy, so yeah. Par for the course lately just like in gaming I guess.

 

[Bartholen]

Just had to check the IMDb, and caught one user review that mentions it has 13 Oscar nom’s. Had to check that too and yup, it’s leading the way. Apparently it’s been deemed a “scandalous” controversy, so yeah. Par for the course lately just like in gaming I guess.

13 Oscar nominations... while having an IMDB score of 5.5. Obviously IMDB scores tend to be vulnerable to mass review bombing, but such a disparity is still nothing short of astonishing. Even the most hated Oscar winners of all time like Crash are still sitting firmly on the comfortable side of a 7.

 

[thebobmaster]

13 Oscar nominations... while having an IMDB score of 5.5. Obviously IMDB scores tend to be vulnerable to mass review bombing, but such a disparity is still nothing short of astonishing. Even the most hated Oscar winners of all time like Crash are still sitting firmly on the comfortable side of a 7.

There's a whole lot more controversy behind Emilia Perez than just quality of the movie, or even subject matter. Apparently, one of the stars of the movie, if not the main star (I haven't paid too much attention to this movie) is a very bigoted lady, and she decided to set up an interview on her own to try to disprove the claims and...well, it didn't go well for her.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The Gorge (Apple TV+)

Miles Teller and Anya Taylor Joy are snipers playing tower defense on opposite ends of a gorge that keeps spawning zombie mutant Ents. Actually not half bad. The first hour is Miles and Anya flirting & bonding across the gorge over cue cards. It's their version of hitting up a lonely chat room at night. By the time one of them falls into the gorge you absolutely believe the other one would chase aft. Compare this to Ghosted, where Chris Evans and Ana de Armas can't hit a single note between the two of them, because they're coded with that romcom toxicity of constant snark and one-upping. Here the two leads spend half the movie waving and signing from afar and I'm rooting for them before they even meet. Plenty of ick and cool stuff going on in the second half too. The more ridiculous it gets, the better.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★ review of Waterworld (1995)

“Nothing’s free in Waterworld.” Oh, boy. Does this film EVER have a troubled production. It all began in the mid 80's, when Peter Rader wrote a script after being inspired by a conversation with a friend about making a Mad Max rip-off. While the script was written in 1986, it was shelved until...

letterboxd.com

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

The Brutalist, 7/10

Treated myself to a solo movie theater trip on a rainy day. I knew going in that this 3.5 hr film had an intermission so me and my bladder were prepared.

This is a movie for cinemaphiles. It was filmed in VistaVision, which was a sort of widescreen format from before 70mm, and the whole thing kind of has that washed out look, so it's like you're watching some lost film from the 1960s. It's also about a Great Man and his Great Ideas and his Great Struggle and him acting so Great in one scene and like a major asshole in the next. Very Cold War Hollywood stuff.

Guy Pearce hams it up a bit as a big shot business tycoon over pronouncing his words. There are also women in the move but they're mostly there to enable and support the men or occasionally imply antisemitism.

Sometimes one may be in the mood for the a self-indulgent Hollywood Serious Big Movie and you can do worse than this one even it means hearing Adrian Brody choke on his tongue over an accent I can only describe as Europ-ish.

 

[Agema]

that apparently tells the story the most faithfully out of any King Arthur movies, so you know the plot. It's perhaps best known for its purposely over the top visual style, which can be best described as "fairytale on steroids": suits of armor glean impossibly brightly

The story might be faithful, but the pedant in me quietly rages at Arthurian knights armed and armoured with kit that didn't exist until ~800 years later.

As a final note, the fact that Snyder loves this movie further solidifies my opinion that he's a moron who's managed to fail upwards. He loves this movie because "it's not a movie for kids", ie. he likes the blood and tits.

Touche!

I agree that it's a feast on a stylistic level, despite some shortcomings on other levels, and I think it genuinely has some proper mythical feel about it. Unlike for instance the 2004 King Arthur which was going for some approximate historical realism, and the less anyone ever says about or even remembers Guy Ritchie's 2017 version the better it will be for human civilisation.

It reminds me in a way like the recent Arthurian film "The Green Man", in the sense that they are perhaps very personal projects full of a director's vision which enrich the cinematic landscape, but which are not necessarily going to be good crowd-pleasers and earners.

 

[Gordon_4]

The story might be faithful, but the pedant in me quietly rages at Arthurian knights armed and armoured with kit that didn't exist until ~800 years later.



Touche!

I agree that it's a feast on a stylistic level, despite some shortcomings on other levels, and I think it genuinely has some proper mythical feel about it. Unlike for instance the 2004 King Arthur which was going for some approximate historical realism, and the less anyone ever says about or even remembers Guy Ritchie's 2017 version the better it will be for human civilisation.

It reminds me in a way like the recent Arthurian film "The Green Man", in the sense that they are perhaps very personal projects full of a director's vision which enrich the cinematic landscape, but which are not necessarily going to be good crowd-pleasers and earners.

I’ll stand firm for the Clive Owen King Arthur movie any day of the week even if it is from almost any objective perspective garbage and bearing sod all resemblance to either the Morte de Arthur or the potential history that inspired it. It’s mainly saved by solid performances.

The Guy Ritichie movie is great any time it’s not being an epic fantasy. Every time it’s being Lock, Stock/Snatch in medieval wherever it’s actually lots of fun and engaging. The instant it starts trying to be Lord of the Rings it falls face first into a pile of shit.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Captain America: Brave New Wordle

I had $4.90 and Monday off. If nothing else, Marvel's 35th movie proves I'd rather spend it on 2 hours of D-list capeshit than 215 minutes of Holocaust kino. Just terrible. If The Brutalist is still playing next Monday I'll go make amends.

Watching Captain America: Brave Little Toaster is a lot like suffering from early onset dementia. Take it from me, who hasn't seen any of the D+ shows. Where did all these people come from? I knew about Anthony Mackie donning the moniker and the frisbee, but turns out there's also a new The Falcon, and a new (old) Super Soldier, and joke's on me for never watching 2008's Hulk because we're following up on that particular banger too. The teeny-tiny girl from Unorthodox shows up as a Mossad badass who gets her own Hallway Fight and I don't know if she's from a show too or somebody simply yelled across the street "They're giving away Hallway Fights down the lot!".

Anthony Mackie's a charisma vacuum, and no lead. I could've told you that from the Twisted Metal show. The aw shucks underdog shtick felt especially phony. You've been part of this grift for over a decade, my dude. The only victim here is Julius Onah, who's going straight to director jail for taking 200M and cobbling together 2 hours of limp TV. A man whose exciting vision for a conversation is having two characters talk, walk, talk, walk and talk some more, all the while ensuring the actors never actually meet (the Giancarlo Esposito reshoots are about as subtle as Botox on a pig).

The whole thing was just aggressively uninspired and unexciting. What's so Brave or New about it? Mackie and his sidepiece discover a "secret lab" and are whispering in awe about it, forgetting it's directly under the equally "secret prison" they just snuck into. See it's not the multiple alien invasions or half of life on Earth coming and going or the planet birthing a colossal new continent just a couple of years ago. Nah man, look at this one room with the dentist's chair! Shivers down my spine. Talk about raising the ante.

4.8/10 - Not quite worth the $4.90.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★½ review of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

“You fool! Look around you! The planet’s destroying itself!” “Exhilarating, isn’t it?” This film, unlike the first two movies, did not have a very troubled production, but there were some incidents of note. One of them resulted in the recasting of Lt. Saavik from the first movie. Kirstie Alley...

letterboxd.com

 

[BrawlMan]

I saw Captain America: Brave New World and I love it! I really have no complaints, and I don't care for the online discourse and rage baiting going on. Those people can fuck off as always and they were never going to like the movie to begin with. Great action, great suspense, and I love the more grounded stakes done in this movie. The parts where Captain uses his wings reminds me so much and what I wanted more of the angel fights in Legion. That and some of the action choreography reminded me of Drive (1997). That is what I love about these Captain America films: the characters and action are always on point. No dumb quick cutting and shaky-cam nonsense. This is an S-Rank for me ladies and gentlemen!

 

[Bob_McMillan]

8/10 - Not quite worth the $4.90.

That is shockingly little for a movie ticket these days, and I'm not even from the US. I see why you make an effort to watch so many movies.

 

[BrawlMan]

That is shockingly little for a movie ticket these days, and I'm not even from the US. I see why you make an effort to watch so many movies.

It was worth the $10 for me! I saw the movie at night.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

It was worth the $10 for me! I saw the movie at night.

That is around what we pay for movies over here now, which is the price of a pretty expensive meal. Pre-pandemic, it was more like $5. Do theaters charge more if the showings are at night?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

That is shockingly little for a movie ticket these days, and I'm not even from the US. I see why you make an effort to watch so many movies.

It's cheap and it's like four blocks away from home but more importantly I just love going to the theater. This year so far caught Nosferatu, Queer, Babygirl, Megalopolis, Anora, Conclave, Companion and A Complete Unknown. Captain America 4 is the first dud.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

It's cheap and it's like four blocks away from home but more importantly I just love going to the theater. This year so far caught Nosferatu, Queer, Babygirl, Megalopolis, Anora, Conclave, Companion and A Complete Unknown. Captain America 4 is the first dud.

I loved going to the theater as well, but when prices have doubled in less than 5 years, it's really hard to stomach it. When the Avengers came out, my siblings and I watched it close to a dozen times in theaters. Doing that today would be insanely expensive. I wasn't keen on watching Cap 4 in theaters, but my sister was quite excited for it for some reason.

 

[BrawlMan]

Do theaters charge more if the showings are at night?

Yes. It almost always like that, even before the pandemic. Mainly around the mid 2000s in America anyway.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Yes. It almost always like that, even before the pandemic. Mainly around the mid 2000s in America anyway.

I mean it makes sense, demand is higher at night, but fascinating. Can't imagine doing that here. I wonder if day tickets are actually "cheaper", or if night tickets are just more expensive.

 

[BrawlMan]

I mean it makes sense, demand is higher at night, but fascinating. Can't imagine doing that here. I wonder if day tickets are actually "cheaper", or if night tickets are just more expensive.

Day tickes are much cheaper. Usually between $5-6.