Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[thebobmaster]

A ★½ review of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life (2003)

“Remember that "no gun" rule? I reconsidered!” This film did not have the best production process. Firstly, it had less of a budget than the first movie, always a great thing for a sequel that should in theory be trying to be bigger and better. While the director of the first movie, Simon West...

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[Johnny Novgorod]

I’ve seen the trailer for this a few times and I thought it looks pretty good and I love both adaptations of Tinker Tailor so I guess I’m quids in.

It's of course nowhere near the level of either Tinker Tailor and the plot is comparatively less convoluted and with lesser stakes, but Soderbergh always brings this smart, cool, playful energy to everything he does that pairs really, really well with the genre.

Plus you have Pierce Brosnan essentially playing M.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★½ review of April Fool's Day (1986)

“Have a nice party.” “Nice? It’s gotta be better than nice. It has to be bloody unforgettable.” As a fairly low-key production, there isn't a lot to take note of, outside of one interesting fact. One of the actors, Thomas F. Wilson, had a choice between two movies when it came time to picking...

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[Johnny Novgorod]

Cherry

Anthony and Joe Russo (You, Me & Dupree) throw shit and see what sticks for 2 hours and 20 minutes in this mopey, interminable yarn about a US vet who turns to robbing banks in order to support his PTSD-addled junkie life. Starring Tom Holland of all people, whom I maintain still looks too young to be in anything that isn't Spider-Man or a high school play. Get back in the kiln, Tom! This feels more like a career move than a film for both Tom and the Russos; Holland wants to play a real-life junkie to shed (unsuccesfully) his teen persona, like Timmy and Daniel before him, while the Russos want to prove that they know how to make a movie without a committee breathing down their necks (they don't). I mean they know that you can do hard cuts and break the fourth wall and put text on screen and throw filters and pan the camera and throw in jarrring inserts and isolate characters with monochrome or soft focus and dillate time and do quick montages. I just don't think they know why a director would do any of that, so they do all of it, all the time, just in case somebody chooses to watch Cherry.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★ review of Fantastic Four (2005)

"I'm trying to figure out why we each ended up with different symptoms." "Oh, well that's easy. I'm hot. You're... well, you're a little limp. Sue's easy to see through. And Ben's always been a hardass." This film took quite some time to get made. Even after the 1994 Fantastic Four movie was...

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[BrawlMan]

Yes Madame! - I saw one of Michelle Yeoh's early works for the first time with Cynthia Rock. It's an 80s Hong Kong buddy cop movie, and I like it! The action and stunts are creative as fuck. Props both actresses and the stunt people involved! The story is nothing special, and I didn't care too much for the comic relief thief characters. The counterfeiter of the trio I liked enough. Though they tend to drag the film down for me a little since they're tied to the plot. I give it an 8/10 for the action scenes alone, and the final fight scene. The movie ends abruptly too, but it's expected from most of these martial arts films from the 1980s.

Apparently, this is part of the In The Line of Duty film series. Royal Warriors is next, but while it has Michelle Yeoh in the lead role again, she plays a completely different character, in a completely different story. After that movie, the last two movies go to a completely different lead actress and character. I will check those out too, after finishing Royal Warriors.

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[NerfedFalcon]

Finally got around to watching The Suicide Squad (the good one). It's not especially deep or anything, but it's at least a lot of fun. Plenty of quotable lines, fun action scenes, top-notch cast. If you're in the mood to just kill two hours along with a lot of fodder and a surprisingly large number of actual names too you can do a lot worse.

7.8/10 too much water.

 

[thebobmaster]

Finally got around to watching The Suicide Squad (the good one). It's not especially deep or anything, but it's at least a lot of fun. Plenty of quotable lines, fun action scenes, top-notch cast. If you're in the mood to just kill two hours along with a lot of fodder and a surprisingly large number of actual names too you can do a lot worse.

7.8/10 too much water.

Unironically, this was the movie that actually sold me on John Cena as an actor. It seems a pretty basic role, but it takes a fair bit of talent to be as consistently funny as he was with his timing, and he also proved to be pretty good at ad-libs. "Standing there in your tightey-whiteys..." "That's racist."

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Fly Me to the Moon

Screwball romcom mingled with the Apollo 11 program. Channing Tatum is the no-nonsense launch director, ScarJo is the peppy marketing wiz the government plants to boost NASA's dwindling popularity, which basically means (in Tatum's eyes) making a mockery of the whole thing. To the point she's eventually asked (I think too late in a movie that's way too long) to fake the moon landing, just in case Apollo 11 doesn't make it.

The whole thing thrives or dies on Channing and ScarJo's not-quite-there chemistry. Like The Tourist before it, the female part is spot-on but the male part is a buzzkill.

Like most Apple movies, it looks cold and sterile, feels eerily empty and is inexcusably long.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★★ review of Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

“Captain, I believe I speak for everyone here when I say...to Hell with our orders.” While this film had a fairly smooth production once it got off the ground, it did have some difficulties with the take off, as it were. The script was actually written at the same time as the script for Star...

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[Johnny Novgorod]

Holland

Set in Holland, Michigan, which looks like an answer to the actual country as much as to The Truman Show, the movie stars Nicole Kidman in the role of a neurotic Stepford Wife-esque woman who suspects her dull husband (Matthew McFadyen) may be having an affair; when she herself starts one with a work colleague (Gael García Bernal), the two start stalking him in an attempt to find proof that will tip the law to her side during a custody battle. I believe custody almost always goes to the mother anyway but hey, can't be too careful.

This is like a Coen bros movie that's a little too whimsical for its own good. Nicole Kidman is great in these quirky, mildly unhinged thrillers (Babygirl!) and the movie is at its most fun while it's toying with her unreliability as a character as much as the possibility that the husband may be gaslighting her. Then we get to a reveal 2/3ds of the way that made everything simultaneously sensational and not as interesting anymore.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

A Quiet Place: Day One

It's a bit like Cloverfield but without the camcorder conceit: aliens attack NYC and the whole thing is skewed from the limited perspective of a couple of people urgently tiptoeing around the first few hours of the apocalypse. Meaning we don't get to see much or hear much of any of it, and what we do get is just a variation of what we already did in the other two movies. Cute cat though.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Cute cat though.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★½ review of Carrie (2013)

This review may contain spoilers. Visit the page to bypass this warning and read the review.

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