What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[accies1874]

The tempo and tone of a lot of scenes are v deliberately OTT and gave off 80s/90s Cocaine Hollywood vibes. Some of it's quite hard to explain, but they place the maximum amount of importance in every aspect on many crucial story beats which makes the tone appear quite ridiculous but sincere. Which isn't bad, it's the stuff I liked most.

[Detournement]

9 minutes ago, accies1874 said:

 80s/90s Cocaine Hollywood vibes.

That's just Paul Verhoeven.

It appears ridiculous because everyone is in the grip of religious mania while grasping for as much of their own pleasure as they can get away with. 

[MSU]

051 -- Barely Lethal (#21 in the A24 series) From the brilliance of Ex Machina to something of a cross between Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk and Mean Girls as Hailee Steinfeld, who went from an Oscar nom for her role in True Grit to playing The Legacy in Pitch Perfect 2, tries her hand as an orphan raised as a secret agent assassin who fakes her own disappearance so she can experience a normal childhood in the US as a Canadian foreign exchange student because plot. [trailer voice]But she's about to find out that being an assassin isn't as dangerous as being a kid in an American High School.[/trailer voice]. Starts off dreadfully but somehow manages to drag itself up to average as it wastes the talents of Steinfeld, Jessica Alba, Sam Jackson, and Sophie Turner. 5/10

Edited May 6, 2022 by MSU

[54_and_counting]

12 hours ago, scottsdad said:

Nope, never watched it. 

You should, its actually very very decent for an animated series

[Soapy FFC]

Just watched Goodfellas for the umpteenth time.

[Albus Bulbasaur]

1917 

Fantastic war film. Every time I watch it I'm more impressed with the framing and set. Would love to know more about the set design of the trenches. 

[Bully Wee Villa]

9 hours ago, Soapy FFC said:

Just watched Goodfellas for the umpteenth time.

Would be in my all-time top five.

[Soapy FFC]

1 hour ago, Bully Wee Villa said:

Would be in my all-time top five.

Is it weird that 4 of my all-time top five are Mafia movies, Godfather 1 & 2, Goodfellas and Casino?

[Bully Wee Villa]

Nah I have Godfather 1 and 2 in my top five, too. Casino is great but wouldn't I rank it in quite in that company.

Edited May 7, 2022 by Bully Wee Villa

[BFTD]

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness - it's a Marvel film; plot is irrelevant.

One of the more mediocre Marvel offerings. Rather than being a proper horror film, it's more your standard Marvel flick with a few horror elements overlaid. Apart from a long sequence towards the end where Cumberbatch could easily have been replaced by a young Bruce Campbell, it doesn't feel like a proper Sam Raimi film either; more like a film that someone else had prepared, before Sam arrived and threw in a number of his own Raimi touches (such as the inevitable, but never unwelcome, Campbell cameo).

For the first time (for me), it gives no quarter to people who haven't been keeping up with the TV shows either - people who haven't seen WandaVision (and I haven't) will be wondering WTF happened to Scarlet Witch, which I guess is part of the plan to increase Disney+ subscriptions. Personally, I'm glad these shows exist, but I don't got time for that shit. This also marks the first tentative MCU introduction of the Marvel characters that Fox owned the rights to; it doesn't add much to the proceedings, in the way that the old Spider-Men reappearing did.

But it was OK. Bit surprised that this wasn't more of a quality blockbuster to set up the rest of the current cycle, but it was more like a less-engaging continuation of the last Spider-Man film's themes. Flitting about between universes in the multiverse wasn't half as wild as you'd imagine either and, if this is going to be the common thread for their films in the next few years, it feels a bit like they're already running out of steam.

[DA Baracus]

15 hours ago, Albus Bulbasaur said:

1917 

Fantastic war film. Every time I watch it I'm more impressed with the framing and set. Would love to know more about the set design of the trenches. 

Great film. Presumably the trenches were dug for the film, but where, and which ones were they based on?

[velo army]

On 05/05/2022 at 16:59, accies1874 said:

 

67. Benedetta (2022)* - Cinema

This starts off brilliantly – it’s so stupid, Americanised and melodramatic which I think was deliberate and often funny. HOWEVER, it got to a point where that wasn’t enough for me and I began wondering what the heck I was doing with myself. I’m not interested in religion so didn’t care about characters, didn’t care about the metaphor and didn’t care about the story’s direction. Ended up bored which was really disappointing for something that held so much entertainment.

 

[MSU]

052 -- The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. aka That Nic Cage thing. Nic Cage plays a (maybe) exaggerated version of himself, estranged from his wife and daughter, struggling to remain relevant, being passed over for roles, when he's offered a million bucks to attend a birthday party in Mallorca for Cage superfan Javi, Pedro Pascal, who has been working on a script. Throw into the mix a CIA plot that reveals Javi is a nasty gun-runner and they enlist Nic Cage to infiltrate the organization. Or something. It works best when it's just Pascal and Cage, hanging out, talking movies, planning the third act of the script, dropping acid, watching Paddington 2, or when the former Mrs Cage, Sharon Horgan, gets involved. The CIA subplot is a bit of a mess, quite annoying, and pretty unnecessary. Missed a trick for me by not having other people play versions of himself. There's no reason to have Neil Patrick Harris play Cage's agent rather than having him play Neil Patrick Harris. It was okay, laughed out loud a few times, and it did make me wonder what a version of myself from 1990 would have to say to me. Wouldn't be pretty. 6/10

[Detournement]

Funny Games (1997)

An Austrian home invasion film directed by Michael Haneke. Probably the most unpleasant movie i've ever watched despite it not being overly graphic. The only purpose of it is to make the viewers feel shit. Haneke is clearly rebuking the audience's desire for violent films which is fair enough but I just wanted something interesting to watch on MUBI for a quiet Tuesday night in so it felt a bit unprovoked. 

Rolling Thunder (1977)

Two American POWs return to Texas after being tortured in Vietnamese camps for years. The screenplay was originally by Paul Schrader but he disowned the final version which was rewritten by someone else, the first half is his usual traumatised male psyche stuff before switching to a revenge narrative. The main character is played by William Devane who I recognised from Knotts Landing and the younger Travis Bickle in the making POW is played by Tommy Lee Jones. 

Edited May 12, 2022 by Detournement

[accies1874]

My Funny Games DVD has been staring at me for a while but I still haven't given it a go, mainly for the reason you've given that I don't fancy chucking it on on a Sunday morning or something. 

[accies1874]

68. Mad Max 2 (1981) - ITV4

My first experience of the Mad Max films was Fury Road, so when I watched the 1979 original I was slightly confused how a reboot of that series could lead to what Fury Road did. It was a lot more normal in its setting and design and a real departure from my expectations of what the franchise was all about. Then I saw this and it all made sense. 

69 (lol). Thunder Road (2018) - Film4

Have you ever wanted to see a 90-minute mental breakdown? No? What if I told you it's really funny but also really tragic and emosh? The opening scene establishes the tone perfectly so if you'll know early on whether or not it's for you. 

70. Panic Room (2002) - Netflix

This was always the Fincher film that had the least effect on me. Didn’t dislike it as much Benjamin Button, Alien 3 or Dragon Tattoo; didn’t love it as much as Se7en , Gone Girl or Social Network. It was just there. I liked it a lot better this time though as it’s probably the most pure entertainment that he’s done. Setting things up, knocking them down, getting everyone and everything where it should be to provide max tension and fun. It’s not just fluff, though, and is quite a clever way to tell a divorce story. I’ve also always wanted Forest Whittaker to “win” at the end which I think is to do with buying safety both literally and systemically.

71. Grown Ups 2 (2013) - Netflix

I was tired and needed something daft – this was ‘recommended’ recently as a pointless, stupid experience so I thought I’d give it a go.

And yeah, there’s maybe 15 minutes of a film with a story, kinda characters, a kinda message etc. The rest is surrounded by things that aren’t even scenes, they’re not even jokes, I don’t even think they’re punchlines. There is very rarely any setup to a lot of the stupid shit that goes on as it’s just a case of Adam Sandler and his buddies going around a nice-looking town in a stolen school bus getting into craaazy scenarios that have no effect on the story or characters as the entire thing is devoid of any consequences. Pretty much the only characterisation of anyone is everyone saying how much of a leg Adam Sandler is.

It's actually quite amazing how daft and illogical and incompetent it all is. There is no need for a script to make $250m – this is proof.

72. El Dorado (1967) - Film4

I don’t really like westerns, but this is alright. It’s quite a sleepy film without being thoughtful or anything like that, it just doesn’t seem to have an interest in being exciting and would rather focus on Robert Mitchum’s arc (which isn’t that interesting). There was something about how it shot its dialogue sequences that often really annoyed me and seemed a bit scattergun. It passed the time though.

[BFTD]

10 minutes ago, accies1874 said:

My Funny Games DVD has been staring at me for a while but I still haven't given it a go, mainly for the reason you've given that I don't fancy chucking it on on a Sunday morning or something. 

It's one of those miserable late night solo experiences that you put on when you want to punish yourself for being a horrible human being. Inevitably followed by a sleepless night staring at the bedroom wall while contemplating self-mutilation in an attempt to get some kind of neurochemical release.

Y'know, like when some b*****d makes you sit through The Sound of Music.

[Squalor Vic]

Funny Games is a film I have no desire to ever watch again. 

Which may well be the point of it 

[velo army]

The Tourist.

I can't remember when this was made, but it was in the noughties. 

It stars Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. She is a mysterious person of interest to Scotland Yard and Interpol. He is an everyman who she uses as a decoy as they meet on a train.

Jolie is, as you would expect, utterly gorgeous throughout, but the film leans too heavily on that and doesn't give her any kind of character. Depp is likeable and surprisingly convincing as a guy who life has just been happening to. I was interested to know more about him. 

There's a twist at the end that had me shaking my head. It relied on so much coincidence and chance, and led to more questions. We never really find out anything much about the characters so it's hard to care that much. The ending feels like a let down.

Good cast, some nice turns from them all, and the two leads carry the film through force of sheer charisma. 

It's pish, but it has Jolie being sultry and sexy for about 90% of her screen time, and Depp has a few fun and watchable scenes. The relationship between her and Depp's character starts to simmer and is played well. Sadly the twist ruins that. 

6/10.

[accies1874]

It's one of those miserable late night solo experiences that you put on when you want to punish yourself for being a horrible human being. Inevitably followed by a sleepless night staring at the bedroom wall while contemplating self-mutilation in an attempt to get some kind of neurochemical release.
Y'know, like when some b*****d makes you sit through The Sound of Music.

I think I'll give it a pass for now then. Thanks anyway.