What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[54_and_counting]

11 hours ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

On 28/05/2022 at 17:27, 54_and_counting said:

I preferred AotC to RotS purely down to the fact AotC lead us to the clone wars, all 3 prequels were shit, TPM was only saved a bit cause darth maul was fucking awesome, and his fights with obi wan and qui gon were tremendous, even then that fucking pod race almost wrecked it completely 
AotC had the redeeming part on geonosis when the jedi came to rescue obi, anakin and padme, was a pretty decent scene seeing the jedi succumbing to the numbers and then yoda bringing the clones in, 
RotS basically had anakins march into the temple, his fight with obi wan, and yoda vs sidious, the rest was utter dung, even the beginning was utter horseshit, dooku was an exceptionally talented sith user and he was bitch slapped that quickly, nah

Tbf I fell asleep when I first watched AotC - the "romance" in the middle between the wooden Anakin and Padme was just awful.

Oofftt aye that was horrendous, whoever wrote the part of the script about anakin not liking sand must have been fired surely lol

[Detournement]

Revenge Of The Sith has this so it's the best prequel.

[Rodhull]

6 minutes ago, Detournement said:

Revenge Of The Sith has this so it's the best prequel.

That's in Attack of the Clones too.

Edited May 30, 2022 by Rodhull

[Detournement]

2 minutes ago, Rodhull said:

That's in Attack of the Clones.

Well Attack of the Clones is the best then.

If that also has Anakin massacring the Sand People then it's by far and away the best.

Edited May 30, 2022 by Detournement

[BFTD]

59 minutes ago, Detournement said:

Revenge Of The Sith has this so it's the best prequel.

That's Mouse from The Matrix, BTW. I remember being quite amused when he'd show up in Hollywood films as I remembered him from Home & Away when I was a kid, although I don't remember his character now. Was he the brother of the lassie with the pale eyes?

[BFTD]

Gothika (DVD) - Halle Berry's psychiatrist finds herself locked up in her own hospital after seemingly committing a murder. But could supernatural forces actually be to blame?

Spoiler

Yes.

I'm a bit of a fan of shit films, especially the ones where everyone's taking things very seriously, and are completely unaware of something that's totally undermining their work (terrible effects, a dreadful script, melodramatic acting, etc). As such, I've been a fan of this since it came out, and I'll occasionally put it on in the background while I'm doing some work. It's notoriously terrible.

I'm a bit concerned tonight, as I actually paid attention to it for the first time in a good fifteen years, and it felt like a pretty good film. Good-good, not so-bad-it's-good. It's a nicely twisty high-concept supernatural thriller, with several effectively tense scenes, and a pretty stellar cast who give it their all, especially Ms Berry. It suffers a bit from having a quality second-act twist that leaves the final third feeling a bit weak, but what can you do. Am I losing my mind in my old age, or have I been misjudging the film all this time?

Couple of other things: despite the dialogue being fine for the most part, it does feature a couple of hilarious lines, namely, "I'm not delusional, I'm possessed!" and "I don't believe in ghosts, but they believe in me"  

It was also directed by Mathieu Kassovitz of "La Haine" fame, but you might know him better for his tremendous cameo in The Fifth Element as the guy in the very nice hat.

 

[Theroadlesstravelled]

21 hours ago, Detournement said:

Revenge Of The Sith has this so it's the best prequel.

That’s why Obi-Wan was a Jedi.

Most men would be using that superpower to tell 10/10 hotties to come up the road for a pumping.

[Detournement]

44 minutes ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

That’s why Obi-Wan was a Jedi.

Most men would be using that superpower to tell 10/10 hotties to come up the road for a pumping.

It's pretty obvious in the Prequels that the Jedi are a paedo cult. It's the Younglings they like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MSU]

061 -- Mojave (#28 in A24 series) Apparently, this movie made $8,000 at the box office and it's quite shocking that it made as much as that. Tom (Garrett Hedlund) is an unlikeable Hollywood director who goes into the desert to find/kill himself and runs into psychotic and unlikeable drifter, Jack (Oscar Isaac), who says "brother" quite a lot. Tom, suspecting that Jack is going to kill him, turns the tables and escapes but in the process manages to kill a cop, which gives Jack an opportunity for a payday. It's poor enough as it is but then Walton Goggins and Mark Wahlberg show up as Hollywood types and it doesn't make it any better. Just a really poor effort by everyone involved. There's probably a mediocre movie in here somewhere, but that's a level Mojave can only dream to attain. 3/10

062 -- The WItch (#29 in A24 series) Robert Eggers' debut feature is a horror movie that is genuinely scary without resorting to jump scares and its attention to detail suggests a far more seasoned director in charge, and it gives something of a hint of things to come from him. Set in 1630 New England, the movie opens with William and his family being banished from their Puritan colony after he has been at the center of some unspecific religious disagreement. They set up home in a clearing on the edge of a wood where they have a new baby son, Samuel. While their eldest daughter, Thomasin, plays peek-a-boo with the infant, Sam disappears and we soon discover that he has been taken by a witch to use his blood in a flying ointment. This marks a pretty clear downward spiral for the family as time and again William proves to be incapable of providing for his family, and his wife, Katherine, becomes suspicious of Thomasin's involvement in their bad luck, wondering if the witch has already infiltrated their family. Subtitled as a New England Folkstory, it's one of those rare horror movies that managed to keep me unsettled throughout, clever enough to make the unsettling aspects difficult to pinpoint while being entirely under the skin. 8/10

063 -- Remember (#30 in A24 series) What an odd little movie. It starts off looking like an intimate portrait of age, love, and dementia quickly becomes...well, something not that. Something not that at all. Christopher Plummer is great in the lead role of Zev, a nursing home resident who keeps forgetting his wife has recently passed away. Thankfully, his buddy in the home, Max, has written him a letter explaining who he is, what has recently happened, and what he always planned to do when his wife died, which was to track down the Nazi blockfuhrer responsible for the deaths of his family in Auschwitz. So armed with his letter he leaves the nursing home on a roadtrip to make good on his promise. Sadly for Zev, there's more than one Rudy Kurlander in the country. There's more than a hint of exploitation cinema in this, especially with it circumventing expectation as deftly as it does, but it's exciting and tense and it may be the only movie in existence that will ever make me think of Apt Pupil and Beavis and Butt-Head Do America simultaneously. Extra half a point for that. 8/10

064 -- Krisha (#31 in A24 series) In her 60s and addicted to drugs and booze, Krisha manages to convince her sister that she's clean and sober and manages to talk her way into the Thanksgiving meal where she will be responsible for cooking the turkey. In the early parts of the movie, we sense a very strained relationship between Krisha and her family, particularly her son, Trey, who can't look his mother in the eye. As the day continues and the dinner begins to slip away from her, Krisha's temptations begin to rear their heads again. Director and writer Trey Edward Shults is Trey. In real life, Krisha is his aunt and Krisha's sister, Robyn, is his mother. Most other actors are friends and family, and while this is fiction, it's clear that there is some basis of a truth somewhere in the Shults family archives. It's a difficult watch because it's such a hopeless situation, but it's pretty powerful, unflinching stuff. 7/10

065 -- Krisha. The 15 minute version of the 80 minute version above. Loses a bit from being rushed but interesting to see how it was developed into the longer piece, not least that between the short and the feature, Krisha seems to have lost the tip of her index finger for reals. Yikes. 6/10

[DA Baracus]

Morbius.

Thank f**k I never paid any money to see this utter pish. Just a really shite movie. Bland, generic, trope filled crap.

I hate when films with vampires make their faces all daft and snarly. Just looks stupid. It happened loads here of course. The fights were of the worst kind of floaty, inconsequential nonsense replete with ropy CGI, where they jump all over the place and smash up skyscrapers. The 'final battle' was over quickly and was rubbish. Get this dreck to f**k.

I was intrigued by Vulture getting 'multiversed' mind. Although how did he make his gear so quick? It was quite clear in Spiderman Homecoming that Toombs made his stuff from salvaged Chitauri tech after the attack on New York. How did he get it in the alternative universe? There's no indication that it was ever assaulted by aliens.

Edited June 3, 2022 by DA Baracus

[BFTD]

YouTube has decided I should rewatch the Cannibal Corpse documentary Centuries of Torment.

Perhaps more suitable for the music subforum but I thought it was worth mentioning on here as it's a really well made and affectionate look at the founding of a band and the burgeoning music movement that they were a part of; you don't need to be a fan of that specific style of music to enjoy it. An upbeat record of a bunch of nice, enthusiastic young guys, as told by the people who were around at the time.

 

[BFTD]

Dawn of the Dead (DVD) - remake of George Romero's classic of the zombie genre. A young nurse finds herself fighting for survival alongside a group of strangers during a zombie outbreak.

Oft-credited with kickstarting the fast-moving zombie craze, although 28 Days Later really deserves the credit there. Zach Snyder's first feature, and it gets off to an absolutely cracking start that it unfortunately can't keep up, slowing to a crawl by the time everybody reaches the mall from the iconic original. It's still an above-average genre film, and benefits from a good slice of Ving Rhames, but it's a pity they couldn't keep the quality level up throughout, as it's genuinely one of the best horror movie openings ever.

Dunno what they were thinking with the zombie baby, though - leave that shit for the '80s Italian directors!

The Crazies (DVD) - a small American town descends into chaos when residents begin to mentally degenerate and turn violent.

Another Romero remake, and also a pretty decent one that suffers from similar problems, from a film that may have helped to inspire the aforementioned 28 Days Later. It also kicks off with a less-explosive, but effective opening act that follows Sheriff Timmy Olyphant as he investigates the bizarre behaviour of his friends and neighbours. Unfortunately, like their brains, the story starts to fall apart into mush once the shit hits the fan, and it gets progressively less interesting until reaching a weak ending. Again, bit of a shame, but it's pretty engaging for a while.

The Invasion (DVD) - after a disastrous space shuttle accident, psychiatrist Nicole Kidman begins to notice odd behaviour on the street and more paranoid ramblings than usual from her patients. But what could be the cause?

Yeah, she's found herself in another adaption of The Body Snatchers - the fourth, by my count. It's not the best, and doesn't have a lot of surprises, but it's entirely passable. Kidman is in full-on Fembot mode by this point, enhanced to the point of being almost unrecognisable, which doesn't help much in scenes where she's supposed to display emotion on her face (which is so ironic by the end). Also noticeable for an early meeting of future Bond and Felix, Daniel Craig & Jeffrey Wright.

[Miguel Sanchez]

They're not zombies in 28 Days Later, they're infected.

[BillySimpson]

Men

Jessie Buckley goes to a country retreat to get over the death / suicide of her abusive husband, then meets a whole range of awful men, all played by Rory Kinnear.

The first two thirds is really creepy, then it goes a  bit incomprehensible. 

[accies1874]

82. Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) – Digital Rental

I watched this when I was 15 or 16 because I’d just seen Age of Ultron and was taken by Elizabeth Olsen. That was a few years ago now and the film would occasionally pop into my head for whatever reason so I decided to give it another go for the first time since then.

It’s great. A really harrowing look at trauma through a world class Elizabeth Olsen performance who carries the silent suffering and not-so-silent moments. I felt bad for the English guy as acting alongside her and Sarah Paulson couldn’t have been easy and he’s not so good. I sort of took his and Paulson’s relationship as being a roundabout reflection of what impact abuse can have in the future as well as the “present” (which EO’s obviously portraying) as Olsen’s character clearly has a big impact on their marriage and might be a glimpse into the future. Not sure. 

The transitions between past and present are terrific; maybe not as sudden as you’ll get in some films like this but incredibly smooth while still providing a wee jolt. Blending timelines also add tension as you start to learn exactly why Elizabeth Olsen’s so scared, knowing what the cult are capable of. I always like when a non-linear story manages to retain key aspects of traditional, linear storytelling to make things click. It’s part of the reason why I like Memento so much.

There are some moments/scenes that put a lot of horrors to shame. One scene manages to build up a tonne of dread before doing exactly what you expect to happen while still making it shocking. 

83. Re-Animator (1985)* – Horror Channel

These kinds of films seem to make up about 80% of the Horror Channel’s film output. Quite funny but I wasn’t really in the mood for it.

84. Grease (1978)* – Film4

If you ignore the story and mute most of the songs then this would be amazing. Its portrayal of stereotypes is hilarious, a lot of the shots are really well set up and the choreography is mostly great. Just a funny high school movie that straddles a funny line between being silly without being self-aware which is pretty much always better than “aren’t we quirky?!”. I just enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.

85. Here Before (2022)* – Digital Rental

Quite interesting. It’s almost like you’re watching a standard domestic horror film but from the villain’s (Andrea Riseborough) perspective which is delved into more than you'd get for a typical antagonist. That’s because she’s not portrayed as the villain; she thinks she’s completely right, the audience are lulled into believing she’s right, and when she starts disappearing down a rabbit hole, there’s a connection there because the film clearly cares about the character.

And then the climax decides to go down a much, much less interesting path that doesn’t necessarily come out of nowhere but wasn’t a natural progression tonally and ended up feeling a bit naff. A lot of cool cinematography, though, and creepy editing.

86. Mother’s Day (2010)* – Horror Channel

Tbh I found this just unnecessarily nasty and violent. Occasionally absurdly funny but honestly just so hollow.

87. Chronicle (2012) – DVD

I remember seeing this as a kid and quite liking it (“found footage but superheroes!” was a great pitch for 13-year-old me) but it didn’t work this time for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it’s way too short. A mess structurally that needed longer to flesh out some of its key plot points that were rushed into then didn’t have enough time to breathe. You don’t get a sense of emotion in a lot of scenes which also links in with my second problem: it was needlessly wedded to its found footage style.

In all honesty, there was no need for this film to be shot exclusively in this way. They almost seemed to forget about it at certain points which was jarring, or they would try and come up with excuses to have an in-film camera show what you’re seeing, but they had to create some kind of distance so just didn’t use the camera to capture what it should have in a lot of scenes. I’m not sure if they knew they were the ones making the film and they can put the camera wherever they wanted!

It's a shame as there are some decent things here, and using “found footage” to document Dane De Haan’s descent made it eerier and akin to a school shooter backstory which this did seem to play into. Dane De Haan does his best and you can see why he got prestigious roles such as the masterpiece, The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

88. Baby Boom (1987)* – Film4

Load of shite. Thankfully the world has mostly moved on from these films.

Edited June 8, 2022 by accies1874

[MSU]

066 -- Green Room (#32 in A24 series) A DC punk band are signed to play a gig in a remote venue in the Pacific Northwest. The audience and headline act are nazi punks so our heroes high-tail it out of there but on their way they stumble upon a murder in the venue's green room and end up barricaded in while the white supremacists, led by none other than Patrick Stewart, try to destroy them and the evidence. It's a gloriously gory affair with a surprisingly strong script, although it maybe runs out of energy a bit in the final act. 8/10

067 -- Men. Or Not All Men, as I'm sure some will end up calling it. Alex Garland's latest effort is packed full of metaphor and imagery. Jessie Buckley plays Harper, who announced to her husband that she wanted a divorce, he reacts very badly and threatens to kill himself. Sometime later, she retreats to a country cottage to recharge where she meets Jeffrey the landlord, Rory Kinnear, and some of the locals, all of whom have a familiar look to them and seem to represent various motifs or misogyny. One of the first things Harper does when she arrives at the cottage is to take and eat an apple from a tree in its garden. We get further use from the metaphorical tree later on when all the apples fall from the tree at once and none of them roll too far away. Anyway, the performances are great, especially Kinnear, the sound is incredible, and there are many very unsettling moments but it felt like Garland was cramming in as many metaphors as possible and not all of them felt as though they joined up with the narrative. I did catch myself wondering why Harper didn't just leave, and then I spent some time wondering why she should have to, and then if she didn't leave does that make her to blame for what happens later? The last twenty minutes is mental. 7/10

[54_and_counting]

17 hours ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

They're not zombies in 28 Days Later, they're infected.

Aren't zombies essentially infected with something 

[Arch Stanton]

On 01/06/2022 at 19:33, MSU said:

061 -- Mojave (#28 in A24 series)...

What is "A24 series"?

[MSU]

3 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

What is "A24 series"?

Oh, it's the series of movies that are made and distributed by the A24. I decided to go through their catalogue for reasons I can no longer remember. 

[Arch Stanton]

4 minutes ago, MSU said:

Oh, it's the series of movies that are made and distributed by the A24. I decided to go through their catalogue for reasons I can no longer remember. 

I see.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_A24_films

I've actually seen quite a few of the 2010 list (Enemy, Under the Skin, The Lobster, KoaSD, Disaster Artist, Room,  Moonlight, Hereditary) without making the connection between them.