Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[NerfedFalcon]

Just got back from watching Return to Silent Hill.

Honestly, if you've never played Silent Hill 2, like the friend I went to see it with, you might get something out of it. The story's about as subtle as a brick to the face and it may have gone through one rewrite too many, but the acting (especially the physical acting from Jeremy Irvine [James] and the monster actors) and cinematography are really good. Knowing the original (or at least the remake), though, that lack of subtlety really hurt it, and maybe this is just a 'clash of expectations' thing, but I feel like the story they came up with whole cloth for the movie was a lot less interesting than the game's.

I don't know how many people on a primarily-gaming forum wouldn't have played or have any interest in Silent Hill 2, but would see a movie based on it anyway, but there you go. It's definitely not a movie I regret seeing, per se, but I wouldn't see it again.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★ review of RED 2 (2013)

“Ah, there is nothing more sexy in the whole world than a beautiful woman with an incredible gun.” “You’re such a romantic.” In January of 2011, Summit Entertainment hired the writers of Red to make a sequel, due to the unexpected success of that movie. Helen Mirren was very quick to jump on...

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[Old_Hunter_77]

Sentimental Value
8/10

One of this year's award-baiting critical darling is a movie mostly in Norwegian. The big name draws are Stellan Skaarsgaard and Elle Fanning but the main character is an actress by the name of Renate Reinsve who I wasn't familiar with.
This is an actor's showcase movie, where actors are acting their assess off. The main character is herself an actress so they're acting at and about acting as well.
It is indeed a little up its own ass. It deals with strained father daughter relationships through the plot of a director wanting to cast his own daughter in a movie about them, kinda.
But it's very good. Reinsve delivers and the film does a nice job creating just the right amount of tensions with excellent pacing so that it doesn't come off as just some award-bait art film but as a dynamic family drama.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Bernie: Good / Great

A funeral director, beloved in a small town in East Texas, befriends a rich, elderly widow whom he kills after their friendship turns into more enslavement than anything.

This was an unexpected gem. Very charming and sweet, and based on a true story to boot.

The Peanut Butter Falcon: Good / Great

An institutionalized young man with Down Syndrome (Zak) runs away from a retirement home he's be prescribed to to pursue his dreams of being a professional wrestler. He befriends a rogue who takes him on the lam down a river in North Carolina to a wrestling school run by his wrestling hero, the Salt-Water Redneck.

A sweet film. Very much character-driven. It kind of meanders, but the connections you see formed on screen are endearing.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★½ review of Beverly Hills Cop III (1994)

“You got a fifty dollar bill?” “I got a wife and three kids. I haven't seen a fifty in twelve years.” This sequel was not meant to happen. Eddie Murphy even said in an interview, to paraphrase/sum up, "The only way a Beverly Hills Cop III will happen is if Paramount pays me a bunch of money."...

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[Johnny Novgorod]

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

I'm still not too sure how I feel about either of these movies. The first one was a folksy coming of age cancer melo (with zombies). Now comes Bone Temple, now with even less zombies, ostensibly built up as a fight between good and evil over a boy's soul, but Blood Meridian it is not. The boy isn't the protagonist this time around, and I wouldn't call Kelson (the good guy) or Jimmy (the bad guy) protagonists either. Actually the boy is of very little importance to either of them. Kelson is mostly obsessed with curing his zombie chum Samson, whose budding friendship is captured in sappy montages where the two of them dance on a hill to Duran Duran, do drugs together, stargaze, etc. And Jimmy is even more aimless, terrorizing random cottages with Spike on his tow until chance squares him off with Kelson in the third act. So I dunno. It's a movie lacking the basic magnetism of a protagonist or any narrative thrust at all. And I'm firmly on the camp of considering zombies as monsters to be avoided or killed, so the whole schmaltzy subplot about connecting with them on an empathic level is lost on me. Shoot 'em in the head I say.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Marty Supreme

Uncut Gems meets Inside Llewyn Davis. Abel Ferrara - yes, the Abel Ferrara - has a shootout with Penn Jillette - yes, the Penn Jillette -, making this movie certified kino.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Leon (Director's Cut): Great / Great

Most popularly known as The Professional , stars Jean Reno (Leon) and a young Natalie Portman (Matilda.) The former is a reclusive hitman, the latter a young girl whose family is murdered by crooked DEA agents. In an act of desperation, she gambles on Leon's good will to take her in after the horrific tragedy only a door away in their apartment building. They grow fond of each other as she appeals to his warmer, guardian side, and he schools her in the ways of the hitman.

I probably don't need to break this 30-year-old movie down as most have probably seen it, but I do because I was a part of a discussion on this very forum regarding its sexual undertones and how I didn't see that stuff. Welp, the Director's Cut includes a lot of stuff that was omitted from the theatrical release that changes my mind. Matilda is very overtly romantically attracted to Leon, and Leon never really states the obvious that her advances are inappropriate leaving enough room to suggest "Lolita" vibes bubbling under the surface. A few scenes that were cut for obvious reasons:

• Matilda is out to dinner with Leon where she is drinking wine, and asks Leon to kiss her. He doesn't, of course, but made me feel icky.
• Matilda goes out on "jobs" with Leon where he allows her to "complete" the job with paintball rounds before he actually finishes it with live rounds.
• Matilda proposes that Leon be her "first," detailing how she heard older girls explain their first sexual encounter wasn't pleasant because they didn't love the men, but she loves Leon, and wants her first time to be a good experience. Stop.
• The scene where Leon charmingly sleeps in a bed for the first time is completely undone by the fact it was apparently a compromise with Matilda that if he wouldn't have sex with her, he should at least sleep in the same bed... to which he acquiesced.

Still one of my favorite movies, and I still don't feel Leon was harboring any reciprocal feelings (I still want to believe his feelings were parental/guardian in nature,) but the Director's Cut shows bits that toed the line and makes sense they were removed from the final version. When I watch this movie again, it will be the theatrical release.

 

[Bartholen]

After Ryan Gosling's unintentional cosplay of him in The Notebook brought Bo Burnham back into my mind, I decided to rewatch Inside, since we're creeping up on it's five-year anniversary. It has lost none of its luster, though it hits completely differently now. It feels contradictory in so many ways: a time capsule of a time that cannot be replicated, yet also a prophetic vision of the future. Intensely personal and intimate, yet generation-defining. Raw and honest, and yet deliberately artificial. To this day I don't even know what to call it. Is it a movie? No. Is it a comedy special? No. A musical performance? No. I guess the best definition would be a one-man play on streaming instead of on stage.

Since I hadn't seen it since it came out, going back to it felt like being catapulted back a million years, despite it really not having been that time ago. And yet when you consider that Inside predates our modern understanding of AI, it feels like a relic from the Stone Age. A lot of the things that Burnham pokes at have completely disappeared from the zeitgeist: the social justice wars, the frustration at corporate pandering, they feel so long ago. And in the meantime some of the bits have aged horrifyingly well: Welcome to the Internet feels like the victory anthem of a Disney villain, the opening number Content, the immediate follow-up Comedy, they feel like prophetic visions, now that the term "content" has become mocked, and stand-up comedy has the worst reputation in decades.

It is legitimately one of the greatest things I've ever seen. It's so dense, there's so much visual storytelling and thought-provoking commentary that's still relevant. I don't even know if I'd classify it as comedy. Art piece feels like a more apt term. It, much like Burnham, is one of a kind. It cannot and will not ever be replicated. If Burnham ever decides to return to the limelight, it will not be the same man. Inside is the end of a journey, and about as definitive as one can get. Merely consider the lyric:

"I'll see you when I see you
You can pick the street, I'll meet you
On the other side"

He's saying he's dead (not literally obviously). Even if you decide to meet up, he never will, because Bo Burnham the comedian and musician is dead, and can only meet you on the other side, ie. death. Burnham himself understandably has a complicated relationship with his career, but IMO there is value in him having gone through what he did. He was a man who recognized what was happening to him and why, and basically documented his entire journey for us to see, and understand that it is not something to replicate or aspire to. Considering he cleared out his Instagram and his merch store link doesn't even work, I don't think he's ever coming back. And frankly I couldn't be happier for him.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★★★ review of Don't Torture a Duckling (1972)

“A horrible crime, bred of ignorance and superstition. We construct moving highways, but we’re a long way from modernizing the mentality of people like this.” This film, one of the early giallo films in the long career of Italian director Lucio Fulci, received a limited theatrical release...

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[Johnny Novgorod]

The Devil Is Busy

Oscar-nominated documentary short about a day in the life of the head of security of a Georgia abortion clinic. I'm guessing that the directors chose to follow her rather than one of the doctors because of pragmatism: she's first to arrive, last to leave; she's in there but she also keeps her distance. She also makes for an interesting character: she had an abortion herself when she was younger, and wonders if that led her to miscarry during a later pregnancy (twins). I know abortion can cause actual health problems in later pregnancies but the way she tells it she might as well be talking religiously. When asked she states abortion is strictly a healthcare issue, not a religious issue, but also signs off every night praying to God for strength and forgiveness. This in contrast to the nutters that pool every day outside, screaming about damnation and shaming the women who approach the clinic. Fuck 'em. Abortion is a fundamental human right.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Leon (Director's Cut): Great / Great

Most popularly known as The Professional , stars Jean Reno (Leon) and a young Natalie Portman (Matilda.) The former is a reclusive hitman, the latter a young girl whose family is murdered by crooked DEA agents. In an act of desperation, she gambles on Leon's good will to take her in after the horrific tragedy only a door away in their apartment building. They grow fond of each other as she appeals to his warmer, guardian side, and he schools her in the ways of the hitman.

I probably don't need to break this 30-year-old movie down as most have probably seen it, but I do because I was a part of a discussion on this very forum regarding its sexual undertones and how I didn't see that stuff. Welp, the Director's Cut includes a lot of stuff that was omitted from the theatrical release that changes my mind. Matilda is very overtly romantically attracted to Leon, and Leon never really states the obvious that her advances are inappropriate leaving enough room to suggest "Lolita" vibes bubbling under the surface. A few scenes that were cut for obvious reasons:

• Matilda is out to dinner with Leon where she is drinking wine, and asks Leon to kiss her. He doesn't, of course, but made me feel icky.
• Matilda goes out on "jobs" with Leon where he allows her to "complete" the job with paintball rounds before he actually finishes it with live rounds.
• Matilda proposes that Leon be her "first," detailing how she heard older girls explain their first sexual encounter wasn't pleasant because they didn't love the men, but she loves Leon, and wants her first time to be a good experience. Stop.
• The scene where Leon charmingly sleeps in a bed for the first time is completely undone by the fact it was apparently a compromise with Matilda that if he wouldn't have sex with her, he should at least sleep in the same bed... to which he acquiesced.

Still one of my favorite movies, and I still don't feel Leon was harboring any reciprocal feelings (I still want to believe his feelings were parental/guardian in nature,) but the Director's Cut shows bits that toed the line and makes sense they were removed from the final version. When I watch this movie again, it will be the theatrical release.

Apparently they originally were going to have them have sex, but this was fortunately changed. And the director is Luc Besson who...I don't know about him and underage girls, but he's noticeably fond of much younger women.

Which is why I've not seen this film.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Apparently they originally were going to have them have sex, but this was fortunately changed. And the director is Luc Besson who...I don't know about him and underage girls, but he's noticeably fond of much younger women.

Which is why I've not seen this film.

Natalie Portman's costuming in Leon has always been a bit eyebrow raising to me.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Natalie Portman's costuming in Leon has always been a bit eyebrow raising to me.

Apparently the first "fan mail" she ever received was about SA, while she was a child. One wonders if this movie had something to do with that.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Natalie Portman's costuming in Leon has always been a bit eyebrow raising to me.

I remember catching the climax on TV as a teenager. Natalie Portman was dressed in a skirt or a dress and there were several shots where you could straight up see her underwear, and I was thinking that it was a weird choice from the director to shoot from that angle so often. Then as an adult I watched the rest of the movie and realised there was much "weirder" stuff in it.

 

[Xprimentyl]

The Wrecking Crew: On Rails, But Good / Great

Two estranged brothers, a cop and a Navy Seal (Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista respectively, so you know where this is going,) are brought back together in Hawaii after their equally estranged father is killed under suspicious circumstances. Despite their differences and the overt animosity between the two of them, they embark on a very dangerous quest to bring their father’s killer to justice.

Very much an on-rails revenge fantasy replete with over-the-top violence and some impressive action. Lots of cussing, lots of comedy, and despite hitting all the notes you can reasonably expect it to hit at the expected moments, it was satisfying. I laughed a lot and the action was great, so I enjoyed myself which is all I require to call this type of movie a good one. Recommended if you have a couple of hours for some mindless, visceral fun.

 

[thebobmaster]

https://letterboxd.com/thebobmaster/film/mulan/1/

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★½ review of The Equalizer 3 (2023)

“Police found multiple dead bodies on that vineyard.” “Yep, yep, yep. Drugs are a dangerous occupation.” Bringing back an idea he had had for the second installment, director Antoine Fuqua decided to go foreign with this film, with Denzel Washington agreeing to return. This film also reunited...

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[Gordon_4]

The Wrecking Crew: On Rails, But Good / Great

Two estranged brothers, a cop and a Navy Seal (Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista respectively, so you know where this is going,) are brought back together in Hawaii after their equally estranged father is killed under suspicious circumstances. Despite their differences and the overt animosity between the two of them, they embark on a very dangerous quest to bring their father’s killer to justice.

Very much an on-rails revenge fantasy replete with over-the-top violence and some impressive action. Lots of cussing, lots of comedy, and despite hitting all the notes you can reasonably expect it to hit at the expected moments, it was satisfying. I laughed a lot and the action was great, so I enjoyed myself which is all I require to call this type of movie a good one. Recommended if you have a couple of hours for some mindless, visceral fun.

My cyberpunk GM watched this today and sent me and the other player messages saying that it was basically like watching our two characters blunder their way through a session with plot armour with only the addition of cyborgs required to make it so.

 

[thebobmaster]

A ★★★½ review of What Lies Beneath (2000)

“Oh, great. 'Could you check in on my wife? She's hearing voices.' Yeah, wait until that gets around.” This film was initially conceived as a story by Sarah Kernochan, based on her own experiences with the paranormal and focusing on a middle-aged couple dealing with restless spirits, planning to...

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