Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★½ review of Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)

“Kid, looks like we’re hooking up with a chick at a rock concert. My favorite kind of mission.” Matthew Vaughn and Mark Millar always intended to make a sequel to Kingsman: The Secret Service if it was successful, and when it was indeed quite successful, Vaughn got to writing. While it was...

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[Agema]

Well since money factored into the screen time afforded to Sebastian Stan, I came to the conclusion it probably also had something to do with her. Which is a pity but what can you do.

I think it's more likely the opposite is true. Movies with too many characters to engage with often end up with viewers engaged with none, and so the filmmakers likely cut out or down the least important first as it has least impact on the plot.

Taskmaster is only the third most important character from Black Widow that's in Thunderbolts*, with very little establishment in the Marvel film canon. She's not even the main bad guy in Black Widow, just the main bad guy's alpha grunt.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Havoc - 4/10

A grittier than you would think action-cop movie starring Tom Hardy. It's kinda exactly what you'd expect qaulity-wise from a Netflix movie at this point. I think I'm kinda done with "straight to" Netflix movies at this point unless I hear really good things about them. The plot is a bit of a mess with too many moving parts and too many different factions to the point where you just have groups shooting at different groups just because the movie is supposed to have a shootout. One of the factions in the movie is shown to be very competent, thorough, and has all the resources and influence they need to figure out the "whodunit" but they still haven't figured it out at the very end of the movie when Tom Hardy figured it out at the start of the movie with a minute of basic deduction. Also, Tom Hardy knows exactly what kinda movie he's in and is basically doing his own version of a Nicholas Cage performance with several rather ridiculous line deliveries just to keep himself from being bored.

 

[BrawlMan]

Another Netflix joint. Furies. Three vigilante women take on drug and human sex traffickers in 90s Saigon, Vietnam. This was a wonderful surprise. While clearly Raid, Wick, and even some Equilibrium inspired, this movie has style, substance, and depth to its three main leads. I will not spoil anything else. See this movie. I give it a 9/10.

​

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★ review of Leprechaun in the Hood (2000)

“A friend with weed is a friend indeed. But a friend with gold is the best, I’m told.” Surprisingly, I do have some notes about the production on this one...or rather, the director's feelings towards the film. In short, he's gone back and forth between being ashamed of the film due to feeling...

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[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★ review of The Goonies (1985)

“HEY YOU GUYS!” This film didn't have too many issues with production, other than what you'd expect from working with a group of child actors. However, the initial script was deemed too long, and was cut down, resulting in at least one reference at the end of the movie being made to something...

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[thebobmaster]

A ½ review of Cheetah (1989)

“Hakuna matata.” The only production notes I have for this film is that it was shot on location in Kenya. Which makes a lot of things quite baffling watching it, but we may get to that later. This film follows two teenagers named Ted (Keith Coogan) and Susan Johnson (Lucy Deakins). Arriving in...

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[Phoenixmgs]

Sinners - 9/10

Really solid movie. I never saw the trailer as I just heard great word of mouth so I don't know if the trailer tells you want kind of movie it is or not so I'll be super vague about it. And I knew really nothing about the movie going in myself. I feel like the movie could've been edited down a bit, it felt like it took just a bit longer to get going than it should have. I feel like the "baddies" could've done more cool shit, though they were really creepy overall reminding me of the baddies from the show From. Once the movie gets going at about the halfway point, it just doesn't stop. Also, the music is fucking awesome.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★ review of Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood (2003)

“Say hello to St. Patrick for me.” This film was initially conceived as taking place on a tropical island during spring break. However, executives at Lionsgate decided to have director-writer Steven Ayromlooi change it to take place in an urban environment, for some reason. Despite the title...

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[Old_Hunter_77]

Rogue One
post-Andor re-watch

This movie originally came out in between some of the sequel trilogy and the Creed movies so there was this period where every Christmas there'd be something to see in the theaters, and that is also around my birthday so we'd have a birthday activity already decided for us.
I never had high expectations for any of this stuff, just some spectacle and nostalgia references with two of my favorite old franchises.
Andor and the first Creed turned out to be the movies that were actually good.

I just remembered being stunned at a Star Wars that told an interesting story and treated a civil war rebellion against an evil empire as an actually dangerous, brutal prospect. Ok sure I liked the blind ninja and the space battle at the end, too, but that ending ending... damn.

Especially coming after the poop prequels and the profoundly dumb premise of the first sequel (it's just the empire again and emo Darth Vader from HBO's Girls, lulz!), it was so good.

We just had to re-watch it after Andor ended and, yeah, that movie rocks. Impressed that it was the same actors except for Jimmy Smits.
I don't really have anything profound to say about it other than the movie holds up.

I also gained a new appreciation for the blind ninja guy as a way to bring the Force back into focus- it's a shortcut, sure (a dude that just keeps saying "Force" at everything) but a necessary one since it was so absent from the Andor TV show yet such a central premise of the saga.

 

[thebobmaster]

Rogue One
post-Andor re-watch

This movie originally came out in between some of the sequel trilogy and the Creed movies so there was this period where every Christmas there'd be something to see in the theaters, and that is also around my birthday so we'd have a birthday activity already decided for us.
I never had high expectations for any of this stuff, just some spectacle and nostalgia references with two of my favorite old franchises.
Andor and the first Creed turned out to be the movies that were actually good.

I just remembered being stunned at a Star Wars that told an interesting story and treated a civil war rebellion against an evil empire as an actually dangerous, brutal prospect. Ok sure I liked the blind ninja and the space battle at the end, too, but that ending ending... damn.

Especially coming after the poop prequels and the profoundly dumb premise of the first sequel (it's just the empire again and emo Darth Vader from HBO's Girls, lulz!), it was so good.

We just had to re-watch it after Andor ended and, yeah, that movie rocks. Impressed that it was the same actors except for Jimmy Smits.
I don't really have anything profound to say about it other than the movie holds up.

I also gained a new appreciation for the blind ninja guy as a way to bring the Force back into focus- it's a shortcut, sure (a dude that just keeps saying "Force" at everything) but a necessary one since it was so absent from the Andor TV show yet such a central premise of the saga.

And to be completely fair, the only reason Jimmy Smits wasn't in Andor Season 2 was scheduling issues.

 

[Bartholen]

The Blair Witch Project, 6/10

This is the quintessential 90s classic that basically brought the found footage style into the mainstream single handed. Three college kids head out into some backwoods to document a local legend of the "Blair Witch". Then they get lost, and things spiral from there. It holds up decently well. The found footage style combined with this having had basically no budget ($60k on) makes it very grounded and restrained in a way that bigger productions would probably have had trouble committing to. There are zero visual effects, costumes or fancy camera tricks: everything is presented as raw, uncut crappy video footage, which does a great job of pulling you into the situation. Despite seeming possibly lazy on the outside, it's actually a very carefully and deliberately crafted and paced film: there's a clear sense of progression and escalation to things, and it's done through very mundane, very relatable happenings. A camera is dropped, some rain drags the mood down, and a map gets lost. Despite the actors being no-name amateurs, you really feel the mounting stress and resentment, partially thanks to some very creative guerrilla filmmaking.

It does a really good job of pulling you into the paranoia: during the nighttime scenes I did find myself scouring the frame for anything out of place despite knowing that nothing was going to show up. The fact that you almost never see anything made my mind start to read the movie in different ways: there might be a witch, there might not be, there might just be a crazy person in the woods stalking people. Or it could even be a cosmic horror narrative about the characters wandering into a pocket dimension and being tormented by forces outside their control or comprehension. The final scene is genuinely terrifying.

In some aspects it has aged though: it feels like this style has been explored and elaborated on by other films since then. The fact that there is so little visual stimuli or indication to make your heart start going means it risks losing the viewer's attention. There are multiple scenes where it's literally just a black screen and sound. The visuals are very samey throughout most of it, so if the characters aren't working for you, you're going to just be staring at a whole lot of brush and trees.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★½ review of Primal Fear (1996)

“They assume they're guilty. You know, they assume they did it, and, like, we know or something. You don't know. You don't ask. You don't care. You do the goddamn job.” This film, an adaptation of the novel Primal Fear by William Diehl, had a few small wrinkles in production. Quite a few actors...

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[thebobmaster]

Forgot to mention about Primal Fear, and this is in spoilers for a reason, "There never was an Aaron, Counselor." is one of the few times recently I actually had my jaw drop watching a movie.

 

[BrawlMan]

Point Blank (2019) - A decent action thriller featuring Anthony Mackey and Frank Grillo. I didn't even know this film was on Netflix for a long while. It's a nice way to kill 90 minutes.

​

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

The Blair Witch Project, 6/10

This is the quintessential 90s classic that basically brought the found footage style into the mainstream single handed. Three college kids head out into some backwoods to document a local legend of the "Blair Witch". Then they get lost, and things spiral from there. It holds up decently well. The found footage style combined with this having had basically no budget ($60k on) makes it very grounded and restrained in a way that bigger productions would probably have had trouble committing to. There are zero visual effects, costumes or fancy camera tricks: everything is presented as raw, uncut crappy video footage, which does a great job of pulling you into the situation. Despite seeming possibly lazy on the outside, it's actually a very carefully and deliberately crafted and paced film: there's a clear sense of progression and escalation to things, and it's done through very mundane, very relatable happenings. A camera is dropped, some rain drags the mood down, and a map gets lost. Despite the actors being no-name amateurs, you really feel the mounting stress and resentment, partially thanks to some very creative guerrilla filmmaking.

It does a really good job of pulling you into the paranoia: during the nighttime scenes I did find myself scouring the frame for anything out of place despite knowing that nothing was going to show up. The fact that you almost never see anything made my mind start to read the movie in different ways: there might be a witch, there might not be, there might just be a crazy person in the woods stalking people. Or it could even be a cosmic horror narrative about the characters wandering into a pocket dimension and being tormented by forces outside their control or comprehension. The final scene is genuinely terrifying.

In some aspects it has aged though: it feels like this style has been explored and elaborated on by other films since then. The fact that there is so little visual stimuli or indication to make your heart start going means it risks losing the viewer's attention. There are multiple scenes where it's literally just a black screen and sound. The visuals are very samey throughout most of it, so if the characters aren't working for you, you're going to just be staring at a whole lot of brush and trees.

Perfect example of a thing that was pretty neat in and of itself and then got the proverbial horse-corpse walloping. I enjoyed it when I saw it in the theater on release and rolled my eyes at every copycat since.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I accidentally pulled a Director of Photography Matt Flannery 2025 double feature. What are the odds!

Havoc

Gareth "The Raid" Evans directed this 4 years ago until it found its way to Netflix. It probably couldn't hack it in the big screen - the city itself looks too much like a videogame cutscene on the small screen - so streaming platforms will do that, purchase some godforsaken clunker starring an A-lister and pass it as an original CURRENT YEAR release. It's yet another cops-and-robbers crime melo from Evans, now with less Indonesian martial arts and more shotgun blasts. In fact I don't believe I've ever seen a movie more enamored with the heft and the oomph of a shotgun blast. There's not a whole lot of action in it until we hit a setpiece at a disco and from there on it's nothing but overkill - in a very slick and stylish way.

Fight or Flight

A wholly insouciant affair cobbled together by a second unit hack from Transformers, "a" producer from John Wick and of course The Raid's DP. The result is a mid-budget Bullet Train with Josh Hartnett in the Brad Pitt role, onboard an airplane full of assassins, although it doesn't have any of Bullet Train's comedic flair or colorful characters. The action is merely OK - lots of whip pans and snap zooms instead of any noteworthy choreography. At one point somebody thows in a chainsaw into the mix like that's the endgame of any zany action extravaganza but no, I didn't think the movie earned its chainsaw massacre. The ending's a bit of a cop out too.

 

[BrawlMan]

Havoc

Gareth "The Raid" Evans directed this 4 years ago until it found its way to Netflix. It probably couldn't hack it in the big screen - the city itself looks too much like a videogame cutscene on the small screen - so streaming platforms will do that, purchase some godforsaken clunker starring an A-lister and pass it as an original CURRENT YEAR release. It's yet another cops-and-robbers crime melo from Evans, now with less Indonesian martial arts and more shotgun blasts. In fact I don't believe I've ever seen a movie more enamored with the heft and the oomph of a shotgun blast. There's not a whole lot of action in it until we hit a setpiece at a disco and from there on it's nothing but overkill - in a very slick and stylish way.

I know this movie had been development since 2019. I actually had forgotten about it, because of Covid and everything.

​

I still consider the movie great overall. Havoc is basically a gritter and gorier take of the John Woo and Heroic Bloodshed sub-genre. This is especially noticeable in the final action scene and I love all of it. The CG I didn't even notice nor care about anyway until my second viewing. I still didn't care, and the CGI that appeared is minor and not really distracting. Besides, this isn't even the first time Evans had to use CG in films. The Raid 1 had some sporatic usage of CG blood in some specific fights. Though you wouldn't know, until you look at the behind the scenes footage or special effects process in the bonus features. Otherwise, it's mostly practical effects any way in Havoc. Glad you were able to enjoy though.

- YouTube

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[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★½ review of The Rainmaker (1997)

“How do you know when a lawyer’s lying? His lips are moving. What’s the difference between a hooker and a lawyer? The hooker will stop screwing you after you’re dead. Everybody loves lawyer jokes, especially lawyers. They’re even sort of proud of it. Why do you suppose that is?” This film, as...

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[Johnny Novgorod]

Hostel: Part II

It's Hostel again, but now it's three girls instead of three dudes, getting tortured and killed in order of proximity to the lead. 20 years ago I remember being put off by the original. Today what stands out to me more than the gore is how Eli Roth's misanthropy comes full circle into a very morbid kind of comedy. The movie does end with an impromptu football match between street urchins kicking around a severed head. And along the way the universe concocts unique little ways of making sure that no good deed and no sensitive soul ever goes unpunished (or with a full set fingers).

Oh and knowing I can just buy my way out of a torture chamber, if I have the moolah, makes it less scary, and doesn't make for a very exciting conclusion. Try bargain with the freaks from Hellraiser why don't you.