Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[gorfias]

A ★★★★½ review of Frankenstein (2025)

“Victor. Did you ever ask yourself out of all the parts you used to make that creature, which one contains the soul?” Guillermo Del Toro had thoughts on making an adaptation of Frankenstein since at least 2007, with the intent on trying to bring into focus what he saw as an innate "emptiness" of...

letterboxd.com

I enjoyed those Del Toro aspects (corpses all over the place: though, those things would stink to high heavens. Would anyone really have just had those lying all over the place like that?) This one is a puzzle. I enjoyed it, but think it ultimately a failure.

Spoiler

The creature is pretty much a sweet heart. He doesn't even murder Elizabeth in this telling. So, what did Victor do wrong in creating him in the first place? Looks like a huge success. Sign this guy up for the NFL.

 

[gorfias]

"Is This Thing On" at the theater.

Very low key telling of a guy, bummed out, getting divorced, wants a drink and an open bar wants $15 cover he doesn't have. He can get in if he signs up to do some stand up. He does so and finds he really likes it.

Bradley Cooper directs a pretty nice movie. Politically, the guy is a bit of a cuck and I'm thinking, "run for your freaking life from a toxic relationship" which, he isn't doing very well. But, this is supposedly a bit of a true story (very loosely inspired by fact). And VW still makes mini-vans? C+

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I thought his best performance was in The World's End, personally, but I can definitely see an argument for Shaun.

We tried watching it today, and we had to stop 30 mins in because Pegg's Gary King was just too insufferable and we didn't have the energy to put up with him. Maybe another day.

So instead we "watched" Tron Ares (I was not interested enough to give 100% of my attention). My girlfriend is a software engineer and her friends told her she'd enjoy it for all the stupid tech jargon they use. They weren't wrong about that, but good God, was the rest of the movie awful. From what I'd heard of the movie, I thought Leto was the one dragging this movie down. I mean, yeah he fucking sucks, with his ugly ass beard and hair and general lack of charisma. But almost every single casting choice in the movie sucks ass. The female lead and her plucky sidekicks feel like they belong in a low budget TV show. The villain is a generic start up CEO tech bro, more Jesse Eisenberg Lex Luthor than Nicholas Hoult.

The decision to set most of the movie in the real world is somewhat of a logical progression considering where Tron Legacy ended, but it absolutely killed this movie for me. The scenes set in the Grid looked pretty good, they even manage to make Leto look cool. But once anything makes its way to the real world, it just looks ass. And makes this movie feel hilariously small too, that floating vehicle they show off in the trailers is pretty much the biggest swing the movie takes.

I quite liked Tron Legacy as a kid, so pretty disappointing for this to be what feels like the final nail in the coffin for the franchise.

 

[thebobmaster]

I can see that. I would give The World's End another try when you do have the energy. Him being insufferable at the beginning is fairly key to the story, so it wasn't accidental that he's like that, but I can completely understand not being in the mood for it. I'm more and more finding myself the same way with the super-neurotic Michael Cera/Jesse Eisenberg type of protagonists from the early 2000's.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

It Was Just An Accident

Any time an Iranian movie gets international attention including during awards season it's worth a look because the filmmakers are escaping Iranian government oppression to get it out there. Mad respect.

This movie is one of those "wacky things go increasingly wrong" dramas / dark comedies. A family's car breaks down and a man that lives in a home they seek help from thinks he recognizes the father as his torturer from when both were involved in the military and politics (the exact circumstances are not explicitly outlines which means you gotta bone up on your recent middle eastern history and/or be comfortable with ambiguity). He sets off to kill the guy but seized by doubt rounds up other torture victims and this comedy of errors driven my trauma unfolds.
Much of the films feels like a play, with flat-shot exchanges and drawn-out interaction moments. Simple but effective cinematography. And a vague ending up to interpretation.

Recommended.

 

[thebobmaster]

I enjoyed those Del Toro aspects (corpses all over the place: though, those things would stink to high heavens. Would anyone really have just had those lying all over the place like that?) This one is a puzzle. I enjoyed it, but think it ultimately a failure.

Spoiler

The creature is pretty much a sweet heart. He doesn't even murder Elizabeth in this telling. So, what did Victor do wrong in creating him in the first place? Looks like a huge success. Sign this guy up for the NFL.

That was what kept it back from 5 stars for me. I get what GDT was going for, showing the repetition of the cycle of abuse from Baron Frankenstein to Victor, and then Victor to The Creature, but by taking out The Creature's more outright vindictive/premeditated actions from the book like killing William (a kid in the book) and framing Justine, killing Henry and Elizabeth out of spite while playing up Victor's abusive tactics to make him more obviously the bad guy, he took out a lot of the nuance of the novel in the process, so it felt like it wasn't quite as strong as it could have been compared to having The Creature essentially be the "If you are going to treat me like I'm evil, fine, I'm evil" character he was in the novel.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Don't know if this would be considered a hot take, but Simon Pegg never delivered a better performance in anything afterward.

From what I've seen Nick Frost also hasn't hit that peak again.

(As an aside, Simon Pegg is/will be in the Harry Potter audio drama, and Nick Frost in the TV series...which...ok)

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★½ review of Equilibrium (2002)

“I’m sorry.” “No, you’re not. You don’t seem to know the meaning. It’s just a vestigial word for a feeling you’ve never felt.” This film was actually somewhat sabotaged by the studio on release. You see, international earnings from pre-release sales had already allowed the movie to profit, so to...

letterboxd.com

 

[Thaluikhain]

A ★★★½ review of Equilibrium (2002)

“I’m sorry.” “No, you’re not. You don’t seem to know the meaning. It’s just a vestigial word for a feeling you’ve never felt.” This film was actually somewhat sabotaged by the studio on release. You see, international earnings from pre-release sales had already allowed the movie to profit, so to...

letterboxd.com

Writer/director went on to do Ultraviolent a few years later. Which is when you swap the story for vampire stuff and make the visuals more colourful.

 

[thebobmaster]

Writer/director went on to do Ultraviolent a few years later. Which is when you swap the story for vampire stuff and make the visuals more colourful.

And yet somehow that film was HATED by the viewers, while this one is widely praised by the same audience. Not saying Ultraviolet was a masterpiece, but I just don't really get what made that one so much worse to people than Equilibrium.

 

[Thaluikhain]

And yet somehow that film was HATED by the viewers, while this one is widely praised by the same audience. Not saying Ultraviolet was a masterpiece, but I just don't really get what made that one so much worse to people than Equilibrium.

I preferred Ultraviolet, it's a very silly action film that doesn't pretend to have a plot, while Equilibrium mixed actual sci-fi ideas with gun-kata, which is harder to pull off.

Plus Ultraviolet had pretty bright colours.

 

[BrawlMan]

And yet somehow that film was HATED by the viewers, while this one is widely praised by the same audience. Not saying Ultraviolet was a masterpiece, but I just don't really get what made that one so much worse to people than Equilibrium.

Ultraviolet went through a lot of executive meddling. Even when you get the director's/unrated cut version. I know the director said he prefers how he did the action in UV over Equilibrium. The action is decent, but the film is a complete blur to me. I admit that I prefer the Gun Kata in Equilibrium. Yet I love the gunplay in Wanted more than either film.

 

[Casual Shinji]

(As an aside, Simon Pegg is/will be in the Harry Potter audio drama, and Nick Frost in the TV series...which...ok)

 

[Thaluikhain]

If you want an excuse to re-use that emoticon, look at all the other names associated with those two projects. Am disappointed in quite a number of people who aren't exactly hurting for work.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

The greater Harry Potter series has always been a safe haven for recognizable british character actors. None of the deserved backlash Rowling got for becoming a right wing lobbyist really stuck to it. She could probably literally car bomb a pride parade and it wouldn't make Harry Potter any less popular.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The greater Harry Potter series has always been a safe haven for recognizable british character actors. None of the deserved backlash Rowling got for becoming a right wing lobbyist really stuck to it. She could probably literally car bomb a pride parade and it wouldn't make Harry Potter any less popular.

Her popularity took a greater hit by claiming Dumblodore was gay and saying wizards just pooped on the floor, than her actually palling around with nazis.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Her popularity took a greater hit by claiming Dumblodore was gay and saying wizards just pooped on the floor, than her actually palling around with nazis.

I never really bothered following majority of her early controversies (although I see quite a lot of them these days), but that wizards pooping on the floor bit really drove home to me how she has clearly exhausted whatever heart and soul she poured into Harry Potter and has nothing else in her life to look forward to. I think I'd probably still enjoy rereading the original books but it sure seems like everything after that has been an absolute disaster.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

J.K. Rowling sucks and Harry Potter adults are an embarrassment.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

J.K. Rowling sucks and Harry Potter adults are an embarrassment.

Any [thing for children] adults are an embarrassment. I don't mind a bit of nostalgia and sharing what one likes with one's own children, that's normal adult behavior. But grown-ass grownups obsessed with Disney or Harry Potter or Star Wars or Barbie or whatever are annoying and stupid and lame.

 

[gorfias]

A ★★★½ review of Equilibrium (2002)

“I’m sorry.” “No, you’re not. You don’t seem to know the meaning. It’s just a vestigial word for a feeling you’ve never felt.” This film was actually somewhat sabotaged by the studio on release. You see, international earnings from pre-release sales had already allowed the movie to profit, so to...

letterboxd.com

It is the same f0rk1ng plot!


Train Dreams on Netflix

Around 1915 and on, we see a lumber jack's life. No real plot. A slice of life. And I'm blown away.

It is just staggering how much has changed and evolved in only about 100 years. Change was very slow and incremental over the last 10,000 years. Then watch this to remind you of this mind spinning human evolution in a cosmic eye blink that has happened while enjoying this one man's story. And it is a terrific story, in turns triumphant, crushingly sad and always gorgeous to look upon.

To illustrate to my wife, I reminded her it has only been 50 years since she first visited her maternal grandmother in the mid-west, who was still using an outhouse at the time.

A+