Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[FakeSympathy]

The Passion Of The Christ (2004)

I have been borned as a Christian, and have been a firm believer all my life. I watched this when I was in 4th grade, and all I remember is how scary some of the scenes were. After all these years later, I watched it as an adult, with more mature view of the world and in faith, and went in with bias-free mindset.

And I think the South Park episode pretty much summed up my experience

This movie focuses WAY TOO MUCH on how Jesus was tortured and crucified.

I am not gonna lecture everyone here about my religion, but the story of Jesus is way more than how he died. I feel the movie could've had more scenes of all of the miracles he performed and the gospels he spread, and how it all led to these events. The irony is that this movie doesn't even come close to how the actual crucifixion looked. Historic records shows that it was saved for the worst of the worst, and they went through a greater number of tortures and body mutilations before being put on the cross. Had all of these been accurate, I feel the movie would've reached the X-rated/unrated level.

Not to mention, they tried making the devil as obvious as possible; I mean the name "Satan" means the deceiver, so wouldn't it have made more sense to have him look like ordinary people? Or is this how Jesus perceived the devil?

However, I do think the aesthetic, costumes, and props were all historically accurate, not to mention the Aramaic spoken in the movie. Most of the dialogs and scenes are pulled straight from the bible.

 

[Xprimentyl]

The Passion Of The Christ (2004)

This movie focuses WAY TOO MUCH on how Jesus was tortured and crucified.

Pretty much. The focus on the explicit "suffering" was meant to show what Jesus was willing to endure for his love for us, but the movie lands as little more than a snuff film. Not a bad film, but it does little for the faith; it's more a spectacle for curious onlookers.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Anaconda (2025): Fun / Great

Four childhood friends with aspirations of careers in the various aspects of movie-making set out to reboot the 1997 film Anaconda.

This was basically a B-movie about making a B-movie, and I fucking loved it. It's a rare treat of a film that out of the gate doesn't even try to take itself seriously, knows exactly what it is, and just has fun. Rotten Tomatoes reflects pretty much what I expected with only a 53%, but I prescribe that to critics who don't go to the movies to just enjoy themselves. Not every movie is trying to be a timeless classic; some movies just want you to laugh when a dead pig is duct taped to someone. It was refreshing to see a piss-take on the rebooting trend that looks said trend directly in the face for its absurdity.

Won't be for everyone, but definitely for people like me who can appreciate a brainless a good time.

 

[thebobmaster]

Pretty much. The focus on the explicit "suffering" was meant to show what Jesus was willing to endure for his love for us, but the movie lands as little more than a snuff film. Not a bad film, but it does little for the faith; it's more a spectacle for curious onlookers.

And parents not only let their kids watch it, but ENCOURAGED it, because Jesus.

 

[Xprimentyl]

And parents not only let their kids watch it, but ENCOURAGED it, because Jesus.

Yeah, that film is pretty much the epitome of belief via guilt. People took their kids to see it because "look what he suffered for YOU," and it just came off as graphically gauche. No one stopped to suggest that an all-powerful God orchestrated all of it, from creation to the natural sin of humankind to the "need" to incarnate himself to suffer and die for... reasons?

I was raised Catholic, but have long since converted to an atheist-leaning agnostic. That film did absolutely nothing for me given I can't fathom why an entity in control of EVERYTHING would do the things the Bible would have us assume were fundamentally necessary for our salvation. You made the game, created the rules, and gave us the tools to do whatever we want; if you love us so much, why are we responsible for executing life to your ideals if it's in your power to just make everything perfect? A therapist today would equate that to emotional manipulation, even abuse, i.e.: what healthy relationship is based on one party constantly reminding the other what suffering they've allowed upon to themselves, with no consequence, for "you?"

The Passion Of he Christ was simply a bloody guilt trip. It shed no new light on an cagey system of beliefs; it's just for reinforcing what it already sells, that a God who created everything "had" to die for you... but he didn't die; he's all well and good, but YOUR soul, yeah, the one he also created and has dominion over, that's the one facing eternal consequences according to the playbook he wrote up. That's not love; that's cruelty, and showing said God get bloodied up does nothing for any reasonable person.

 

[BrawlMan]

This movie focuses WAY TOO MUCH on how Jesus was tortured and crucified.

Exactly why I'll never, ever touch that movie ever again. I'm Christian myself, and even I felt dirty watching this movie back when I was 14. For the record, my parents took my older brother and I. Though he was already an adult by that point. Both of us agreed to never, ever see it again. My parents don't even have the dvd, and I don't think they have the stomach for it either.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★½ review of Little Caesar (1931)

“The conceit of that guy.” “Yeah. They’ll have to build a special noose to fit his swelled head through.” Based on the 1928 novel of the same name by William R. Burnett, this adaptation was one of the first true gangster movies, coming out the year before the original Scarface. While reports...

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[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★½ review of Ne Zha (2019)

“If you don’t like your fate, fight it until the bitter end.” This film, an adaptation of the classic Chinese mythology revolving around a protective deity named Nezha, took two years to write, with a total of 3 years of production. One interesting note is that according to the director Jiaozi...

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[hanselthecaretaker2]

The Passion Of The Christ (2004)

I have been borned as a Christian, and have been a firm believer all my life. I watched this when I was in 4th grade, and all I remember is how scary some of the scenes were. After all these years later, I watched it as an adult, with more mature view of the world and in faith, and went in with bias-free mindset.

And I think the South Park episode pretty much summed up my experience

This movie focuses WAY TOO MUCH on how Jesus was tortured and crucified.

I am not gonna lecture everyone here about my religion, but the story of Jesus is way more than how he died. I feel the movie could've had more scenes of all of the miracles he performed and the gospels he spread, and how it all led to these events. The irony is that this movie doesn't even come close to how the actual crucifixion looked. Historic records shows that it was saved for the worst of the worst, and they went through a greater number of tortures and body mutilations before being put on the cross. Had all of these been accurate, I feel the movie would've reached the X-rated/unrated level.

Not to mention, they tried making the devil as obvious as possible; I mean the name "Satan" means the deceiver, so wouldn't it have made more sense to have him look like ordinary people? Or is this how Jesus perceived the devil?

However, I do think the aesthetic, costumes, and props were all historically accurate, not to mention the Aramaic spoken in the movie. Most of the dialogs and scenes are pulled straight from the bible.

I haven’t seen it as an adult, but generally speaking if someone else directed it that message probably would’ve come through better. Basically this and kid-friendly -

Der König der Könige (2025) ⭐ 6.8 | Animation, Biography, Family

1h 43m | 6

www.imdb.com

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★ review of Rocketman (2019)

“It’s not just the name. You’ve got to kill the person you were born to be to become the person you want to be.” Elton John, along with his husband David Furnish, had been trying to get a biopic made for quite some time. As far back as the late 2000's, development had started at Walt Disney...

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[thebobmaster]

A ★★★ review of Brightburn (2019)

“I want to tell you what I learned tonight. I learned that I'm very special. You're one of the only people in the world that know how special I am. But someday... they will all know.” This film was written by Brian and Mark Gunn, and directed by David Yarovesky, but it was producer James Gunn...

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[Old_Hunter_77]

It's movie season for me this time of year, when award nominations come out and yearly lists are published and of course prestige movies are released en masse.
One Battle After Another has interested me in going back through Paul Thomas Anderson's work to watch the movies I missed.

Hard Eight, 1996
Anderson's first movie is a relatively short (i.e., normal length) character neo-noir small-scale film. Anderson's later proclivities for epicness and showy cinematic flair isn't in evidence yet. What is, though, his focus on character for the sake of character, and mood.
This is a Vegas sort of neo-noir where one of those "older guy you know for sure from other stuff" is the main character and takes on a father figure role for John C. Reilley's down on his luck gambler. Gweneth Paltrow's hooker with a heart of gold and Sam Jackson as, well, a Sam Jackson character, round out the cozy cast. I do like Vegas set movies and watching Reilley learn how to make a sustainable living, if not great weath, as a professional gambler was pretty cool.
The other Anderson quirk that happens is that halfway through the plot gets preposterous but since the move is short, I was invested in the characters, and it was small scale, it was very watchable.

If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You, 2025
Watched for star Rose Byrnes. Published by A24 so you know it's got quality. It's about a mother with daughter with an eating disorder and everything going nuts in her life, collapsing under the pressure. It's all intently from her PoV- you don't even see the kid's face until the last scene. Basically this movie felt like an warning video against having kids because holy hell is this woman miserable. Conan O'Brien plays her therapist and A$ap Rocky plays the obliviously jolly motel dwelling neighbor.
This movie is kind of like Birdman, where the camera is following this one person around as they're going through all heck, but even more claustrophobic. The movie also adds elements of abstraction and moments that blur reality.
It's a hell of a ride and delivered what I came for- Byrnes acting her ass off.

Sorry, Baby, 2025
One of the character-feels indy darlings of the year, about a young woman who is dealing with the aftermath of a sexual assault.
I really don't know how to feel about this movie. The characters are speaking and acting in this super detached, blunt, and irony-laden tone that feels like Gen Z swallowed Gen X. It's like it's constantly apologizing for having emotions or something. On the one hand I appreciate that it was trying to deal with something that is unfortunately common and deserves to be examined from unique perspectives, but on the other hand it is trying to be like a dark comedy but with no jokes so then the tone was just confused. There's something very early-00's about making the characters quirky but hearing women who are educated (she is a professor!) and smart sound like autistic babies half the time makes that come off weird.
I think this is a movie that if it hits, it will hit hard, and that's why it got so much positive attention.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Watched Sinners in bed, at night, like a proper horror movie.

My girlfriend saw it in theaters and loved it enough to want to watch it again with me, and I do think it's a really fun movie. Michael B Jordan is great in both his roles, the soundtrack and sound design were excellent, and the costumes and sets really sold me the setting.

But everyone has already sung praises for this movie, so I might as well just share my complaints. The climactic scene where Gracie (Goddamnit Gracie) lets in all the vampires was just a confusing mess of bodies that was impossible to find scary. I swear to God the vampires were killing people who weren't even present previously. Or if they were, they had no names and basically no screen time. Then Mary randomly runs away and Stack for some reason promises Smoke not to touch Sammie, and it all ends when Smoke magically teleports behind Irish vampire and saves the day.

I was disappointed that it ended so messily, but not enough to say that I dislike the movie. I actually kind of wish we just got a story about two criminals trying to establish a juke joint without all the vampire stuff.

 

[Gordon_4]

Zootopia 2 - 8/10

This sucker has plenty of heart and some great comedy beats. The only issues are some of the supporting cast are really annoying -Nibbles and the Zeebros - and they sideline the cool ones like Bogo and Clawhauser. Upshot, Gazelle got to have a couple scenes including one where she does a sick elbow drop. Shakira's new(?) song "Zoo" is pretty cool but unlikely to have the same impact as "Try Everything".

My only issue with the story is that they really seem to have laser focused Judy on to being all about the case all the time and dragging Nick - who for all his irreverence, is actually trying to follow the rules - into the shit and they never properly bring Judy to task for it outside of a fast paced (but contextually very heartwarming) trauma dump she has with Nick. Like seriously, through out this movie Nick really has the feeling of being Sam Gamgee except he's lumbered with looking after Merry and Pippin's splice baby instead of Frodo.

Spoiler

Also, while all the Nick/Judy that came after the first movie was totally shipping goggles at work, I think the writers actually DO want to do that based on the barely restrained subtext in this one. I actually thought they were gonna make out after the big confession scene. Just do it you cowards.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★½ review of Rio (2011)

“Oh, no, no! It's not what you think. We're just uh... chained together.” “Hey, I’m not judging you.” “Keep it spicy!” The idea for this film originated in 2006, when Carlos Saldhana came up with the idea of a penguin getting washed up on the shores of Ipanema. However, when that same year had...

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[Johnny Novgorod]

I watched the first four Hunger Games movies.

The Hunger Games

First half of the movie is kinda fun. "Plain" Jennifer Lawrence volunteers to a battle royale in a YA dystopia where everyone dresses like its Zoolander. Shockingly, the actual hunger games are the least interesting part of the movie. It boils down to a bunch of people running around in a forest and doesn't look all that different from those low budget straight-to-video movies that think the woods make for instant production value. J-Law only kills 2 people by my count, and the last one is really out of mercy.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

It's the bigger, better, slicker, generally more fun sequel. There're some cool new characters, a couple of poignant deaths, the games themselves are actually fun (even if, again, J-Law only kills a single dude in the whole movie - she spends the bulk of her action career running the fuck away, it seems). The ending is a wash. "That's the ending!?" level of anticlimax. It's also a bit frustrating just how little agency Katniss has in these. Outside of first volunteering she seems to spend her time either being knocked out or shepherded around by the people actually driving the plot.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

This is the worst one of the four. The year is 2013 and splitting the last movie of a series into two halves is all the rage. Problem is evidently nothing much happens in the first half of the book. So this one is 2 hours of J-Law and a motley crew of Academy Award winners and nominees whispering to each other what's going on in the outside world while they plot away in a dumpy bunker. It's just not very fun. And the dramatic moments feel manufactured. We get the same scene 5 or 6 times of J-Law walking through debris, looking horrified. At one point she shoots down a plane with an arrow, marking her one kill in the movie.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2

It's marginally more fun than the previous one because at least we get some action set-pieces, if only because they decided to throw in zombies at the last minute. These last two are a little overwhelmingly dour, the way every YA series seem to become - almost apologetically - towards the end. Rife with scenes in which too many characters talk about things we don't get to see, usually standing around or sitting in a circle. And once more, J-Law only takes down exactly one person. That's 5 kills across 4 movies by my count.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★½ review of Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

“Then tell me something, answer a question for me. How can a black man, dressed like me, just march into your warehouse, walk into the bonded area, and start poking around without anyone asking me any questions whatsoever?” This movie had quite a long road to getting made, all during the...

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[Thaluikhain]

Alien - Romulus

This was ok, quite decent in parts, but full of the usual annoying throwbacks. Also, so very many people in Aliens films have to be stupid and/or otherwise incompetent for things to work, starting with Gorman in Aliens (though my mum is convinced he was handpicked because Burky wanted someone out of their depth that he could run the show quietly for). The company knows that the xenomorphs are dangerous and have acid for blood, but seem not to have prepared for that. OTOH, Elon Musk is apparently a real person and not a B-Movie villain, so, can't complain too much.

Some of the later films have also moved away from the monster impregnating anyone,to special focus on women who get pregnant the old fashioned way and nasty things happened to them, which the earlier films were a subversion of.

Oh, and starring people who have died before filming begins seems a bit creepy...which works on a meta-level, I guess?

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★½ review of Renfield (2023)

“Of course the hit is going well, I’ve got Apache Joe on it. The man cuts out people's tongues with a hunting knife. You tell him his name is racist!” This film's origin dates back to 2013, when Universal Pictures announced a Dracula film as part of their Dark Universe. However, when 2014's...

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[Johnny Novgorod]

Fifty Shades of Grey

One of my favorite movies is Jacques Rivette's La belle noiseuse. It's 4 hours of a painter doing a nude portrait you never even get to see. Stars Michel Piccoli as the painter and Emanuelle Beart as the extremely naked model.

I mention this to say that Fifty Shades of Grey, which is half as long, and projects more variety when it comes to characters, locations, mood swings, mommy lit tropes and sex acts, somehow feels like such a non-event.

Nothing freaking happens! It's 2 hours of Christian Grey badgering Dakota Johnson into signing a legally-binding (lol) contract. He's into BDSM and wants to cover his bases. She's along for the ride, until she decides she isn't, and that's the movie.

The movie's rife with what feel to me like a bunch of aborted subplots. Dakota friendzones a co-worker who harasses her early in the movie, never to be brought up again. Her boss at the hardware store is a little handsy - anything gonna happen with that? No. Grey's brother starts dating Dakota's roomie/BFF - you always need a beta couple in these - but nothing happens with them either. Oh look it's Marcia Gay Harden playing Grey's mom - she's gonna be important, right? Disapproves of the relationship, is stonewalling him at work? Anything? No? Ok, what about this Mrs. Robinson character (mom's friend) who sexually abused Grey when he was a minor and he keeps bringing up - she in the movie? And so on. Nothing. Fucking. Happens.