Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

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thebobmaster

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Johnny Novgorod

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The Descent Part 2

It's The Descent again, but not as effective because 1) the jig is up and 2) the characters are just cops and rescuers who lack the baked-in tension of the friend group from the first movie. The final... not girl, but ma'am from the first movie also returns in a role that asks, what if Ripley spent the entirety of Aliens in a half-feral, half-catatonic state? Although I guess that's also Alien Resurrection for you.

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thebobmaster

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thebobmaster

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Bartholen

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I have now seen Angel's Egg twice, and it's a 10/10. What a stunning piece of art. I've formed what is IMO a fairly cohesive interpretation of it, which I will now share for your indifference:

What we see in the film is part of a larger chain of events, which could be called a creation myth. Or more accurately, a recreation myth, because the movie is depicting the rebirth of a world. You see, the world of the movie is post-apocalyptic, and in the most literal sense: the actual biblical apocalypse, God vs Lucifer, has come and gone. God won in the end, but through overwhelming cost that left the world and reality itself in ruin, and God is now in the process of starting the world anew through some unspeakably complex machination, which we see a part of in the movie. The title of the film is literal on multiple levels: the girl holding the egg is an angel, and the eggs suspended on what look like upwards-growing tree roots are holding the fetal forms of angels. The angels are slowly incubating, waiting for the day that they can awaken and start their phase of the rebuilding of the world.

The apocalypse of the world was so total and so thorough that reality itself broke apart. That's why there's all sorts of weird, unexplained shit. But reality is slowly being reconstructed through God's plan. In it lower ranks of angels, of whom the girl is one, are sent one by one to the world, have their memories wiped, and are tasked with protecting an egg for an unstated purpose. That's why, despite looking like a child, the girl doesn't really act like one, and is so protective of the egg: in the back of her mind she has a sense of assuredness, and the egg is the most precious thing in the world to her. The man she encounters is another angel: no other than Lucifer himself! He's been cast down into the world to inhabit a vessel, had his memories removed, and is serving his penance as the villain in God's plan. He is tasked with encountering the angels sent by God, gaining their trust, and one after another breaking the eggs they're protecting. Upon that betrayal, the breaking of spirit, and the ensuing burst of emotion, a small part of reality is restored, the angel is called back into heaven, and the cycle repeats.

Lucifer's penance lies in him slowly recovering his memories during these visits, which he will then lose upon completion, forced to betray his brothers and sisters in an endless cycle in this forgotten world. There is a line that's repeated three times in the movie (which is significant for how little dialogue there is): "Who are you?" It's both a reminder and a taunt towards Lucifer: as he remembers who he is time and time again, he is forced to confront his identity as the angel who destroyed the world. To rub salt in the wound he is forced to bear a twisted form of the Christian cross, as if God's saying "yeah, you know who's on top".

What of the shadowy men hunting the shadows of fish then? This is where I have to kind of start making leaps, but I interpreted them as the echoes of humanity: half-remembered forms of beings that once existed. The fish is one of the most significant symbols in Christianity, having all sorts of meanings: Jesus himself, the christian faith in general, the story of the five fish and two loaves of bread. You could derive any amount of interpretations of the film from that: maybe the fish are the presence of God himself, who's checking if the angel is proceeding with their task as planned. Maybe it's Jesus seeking to reconnect with humanity, being only met with scorn and rejection.

Then there's the water, which is a huge part of the film: one of the first locations the girl visits is a pond, there's rain, flooding, talk of the biblical flood of Noah and so on. This is another part where you could really slot in almost any meaning you want. To me the water signifies that the reclamation of the world during the film is quite a ways in: water after all is considered the foremost source of life, and one of the first sentences in the Bible is about how the spirit of God floated above the waters. So the water represents the promise of rebirth and life, and signifies God's presence.
 

thebobmaster

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thebobmaster

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Johnny Novgorod

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Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed

If all you know about Rock Hudson is that he was a closeted Hollywood star and the first famous person to die of AIDS... well you won't get much more than that from this. Much is made of his double life (which he accepted with conservative aplomb), while his movies are either taken for granted or rather questionably reinterpreted as coded double entendres pointing, with the benefit of hindsight, to Rock's sexuality. It's sad and fascinating the lengths to which he had to go to conceal it. These days Pedro Pascal can fellate a rainbow glow stick at a rave and people go, "Yeah but he hasn't said anything". Also Rock had a "sizeable penis" according to one of his erstwhile twinks, which I bet you won't find on Wikipedia.

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Johnny Novgorod

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What's Up, Doc?

A revolving door farce set in a San Francisco hotel, involving four identical overnight bags and the people trying to steal them from one another. Trying to keep track of which is which is sort of impossible, a shell game from hell, but one of them has TOP SECRET documents, another has jewels, third is literally just a bunch of rocks (property of Ryan O'Neal's milquetoast musicologist) and the fourth belongs to Barbra Streisand's Judy Maxwell, who is essentially Bugs Bunny crossed with that one annoying girl you remember from your first year of college. For no evident reason other than being the true agent of chaos that Nolan's Joker only claimed to be, Judy decides to impersonate Howard's fiancee Eunice (Madeline Kahn!) during the terribly important convention where he's applying for a research grant, and he's too much of a pushover to do anything about it. But before I go on: this is a lot of fun. O'Neal is flustered and deadpan, Streisand is quippy and energetic, Kahn is always terrific as the overbearing fiancee prone to hysterics and humiliation. The movie loses something during its final act once we abandon the hotel but man if it isn't fun the way every single mishap and misunderstanding interlocks and keeps building up the comedy of errors without missing a beat.

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thebobmaster

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Johnny Novgorod

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Predators (2025)

I more or less regularly listen to The Big Picture, and this movie was listed as one of the myriad more interesting contenders for Best Documentary than the actual nominees this year. No real explanation given. Looked it up, decided to watch. It's a documentary about the heyday and cancellation of To Catch a Predator, the flurry of copycat YouTubers that followed and Chris Hansen's own comeback show. Who exactly is directing the documentary, and the reason why they're doing it, whether intentionally or not came to me as a bit of a shock once it was revealed an hour into the movie. It sort of repurposes the whole thing into a quest. Overall, does a good job at interrogating the appeal and 'usefulness' of entertainment masquerading as a service, and I say that as someone who gleefully binged the whole thing during the lockdown of 2020.

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thebobmaster

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Gordon_4

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Dune (One and Two) - 10/10

This is a combined score. Neither movie is truly perfect but taken as a whole, near six hour, epic story its a pretty fuckin' great experience. I regret that much of the story meat about the political state of the Imperium was shaved away but I also get that digressions like that can kill the flow of a movie compared to a novel. Overall I prefer to watch Part One to Part Two but that's merely a 'me' thing. Also, it much just be all the framing of Dune as this feudal empire ruled by competing political interests, money, and militant church scheming but it always seems weird when I hear what could be radio chatter from any recent modern war film except its coming from someone who's basically flying a mechanical dragonfly.

But that weirdness aside, I love the way these movies look, how they sound and how they're paced. Each one's near three hour run time never feels like that. If Part Three continues at least on a level quality trajectory with Part Two, I think we're looking at the best genre fiction trilogy since Lord of the Rings. And if there's any mercy left in the world, they're hiding some equally meaty extended/director's cuts of these movies too.

Atreides! Atreides! Atreides! Atreides!

Also, and maybe someone who's read the series can enlighten me on a point. As I understand it Emperor Shaddam IV had the Atreides ended because of Leto's growing popularity and wishes to knock on the head perhaps any designs on the Imperial Throne of Leto's. But - at least as depicted in Part Two - Shaddam has a daughter, Irulan, but mentions no sons. He even says in one scene that Irulan would make a formidible Empress. Now if that succession isn't possible, why didn't he just ask Leto to betrothe Paul to Irulan? Like I get power tends to patralineal in these situations but there's worse fates for a great house than to join with another one who's star is rising to at least keep their skin in the game.
 
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Casual Shinji

Should've gone before we left.
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I watched Zootopia 2 and it wasn't great.

Very much a sequel made in the wake of the unexpected succes of the first movie. 'What did people like about the original? Yeah, more of that.' And what did they like? They liked the animal gags, so we have more (probably too much) of that. They liked Judy x Nick, so let's pour gallons of fuel onto that. And we can't deny how gaga furries went for the first movie, so let's introduce a sexy himbo horse man, and ofcourse bring back Gazelle with even more shapely legs and her sexy back-up dancing tiger men.

The plot however was probably lowest on the list of priorities. The snakes and reptiles are treated like second-class citizens, and a snake named Gary is trying to uncover some conspiracy, but it lacks a lot of weight because Nick and Judy - as the main characters - aren't personally involved in this. And Gary gets pretty snowed under. It's like Disney thought they could just cast Ke Huy Quan, have him spout a bunch of saccharin shit about love, hope, and trust, and that that would just do it, but it doesn't unfortunately.

And they might as well have Judy and Nick kiss already, because the thinly veiled 'they're partners cuz they're cops' isn't fooling anyone.
 
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Johnny Novgorod

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War Machine (2026)

Middle of the road Netflix potboiler. Jack Reacher and a ragtag team of NPCs are chased in the woods by the "20 seconds to comply" robot from RoboCop.

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Gordon_4

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And they might as well have Judy and Nick kiss already, because the thinly veiled 'they're partners cuz they're cops' isn't fooling anyone.
It’s a sequel that runs more on strength of main character chemistry than a solid plot I agree. But yeah as much as I had a breezy good time, I did spend half the run time thinking “Kiss you fools!” because you’re right; this shit is fooling nobody.
 
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thebobmaster

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