What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Squalor Vic]

Everything Everywhere All at Once

What an incredible film and really puts Marvel to shame (Into the Spiderverse aside) in how inventive you can be with a film dealing with different realities, but also keeping the story kinda coherent and a real emotional core all the way through it. It might depend on your tolerance for absurdity and at times immature humour, how much you'll take to this but for me it took so many crazy jumps and stuck the landing every time. Performances were all brilliant and I fully intend to watch it again in the next day or two. It's on at GFT this week so might even take a trip up to see it there. One of the best films I've seen for a long time

[Arch Stanton]

I've recently watched a few John Carpenter films again to while away the hours until the real football starts again. Classics of the horror and sci-fi genres such as Halloween, The Thing, Escape From New York and They Live are all superb and well worthy of repeat viewings.

However, my favourite JC film has always been Starman (1984) which, ostensibly is a sci-fi movie but also a road movie and, most importantly, a love story.

Voyager has arrived at a distant planet and enlightened them to the music of the Rolling Stones and Kurt Waldheim's  invitation to visit Earth.

Karen Allen is a recently bereaved widow and spends her nights watching home movies of her and husband Jeff Bridges. A UFO crashlands on her Wisconsin farmland and, using the same animatronics as "The Thing" (although not so gruesome), an alien changes from a light source to a baby to a doppelganger of the dead husband.

Bridges is brilliant, his jerky movements and stilted speech make for a totally convincing alien, Allen is also superb and without giving too much away, the alien is only on Earth for a limited time, hounded by the authorities in his quest to get home but long enough for Allen to find love again and get the one thing she's always wanted.

It's so unlike anything else in Carpenter's oeuvre but I think it's his best work.

[BFTD]

Never got around to seeing Starman, but I think I really ought to now. Carpenter's one of my favourite filmmakers, and did an incredible job scoring his films too.

I want to see Dark Star again too - I don't remember it well, but was shocked at how much had been "inspired" by it, particularly Red Dwarf.

[Arch Stanton]

27 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Never got around to seeing Starman, but I think I really ought to now. Carpenter's one of my favourite filmmakers, and did an incredible job scoring his films too.

Spoiler

It's a great movie  but with numerous Christian allegories (a man dies but is reborn, he brings a dead sentient being back to life, is only on Earth for 3 days before ascending to a higher plane and there's an immaculate inception) however, as an atheist, I choose not to read too much into such things. 

 

Edited July 13, 2022 by Arch Stanton

[scottsdad]

Lightyear. The most pointless, dull, banal film I have seen in ages. 

If you are expecting any of the warmth or humour from the Toy Story movies, forget it. 

[Theroadlesstravelled]

Elvis.

I liked it.

 

[dysartrovers]

Jurassic world
Shite

[Mark Connolly]

11 hours ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

Elvis.

I liked it.

 

Think that was Gerry and the Pacemakers...

[coprolite]

Thor Love and Thunder

Took a bit to get into its stride but was very entertaining when it got going. 

If you're doing a film about viking gods from space, it's going to be silly so embrace the silliness i say. And they did. It's absolutely ridiculous. 

Definitely better than the first two Thors. Not as good as ragnarok though. 

Christian Bale was a proper baddie and scared the kids. 

Spoiler

The kid fighting shadow monsters with a lightning powered toy bunny was my personal highlight. 

 Some very enjoyable scenes with half the budget on show, but overall a bit of a muddle. 

7/10

[Shandon Par]

Not sure whether to see Elvis. Absolutely detest, to the point of my skin crawling, Baz Lurman’s other films.

(didn’t mind Romeo and Juliet but not seen it since it first came out).

Edited July 14, 2022 by Shandön Par

[BFTD]

19 minutes ago, Shandön Par said:

Not sure whether to see Elvis. Absolutely detest, to the point of my skin crawling, Baz Lurman’s other films.

(didn’t mind Romeo and Juliet but not seen it since it first came out).

Moulin Rouge is one of the few musicals I can sit through. I have a weak spot for gushing, unapologetic love stories (not the cynical shit you normally get in romcoms). Love Actually is also on my List of Shame.

BTW, I just noticed that he acted in six episodes of A Country Practice back when he was starting out; that's a show I haven't thought about in decades.

[Shandon Par]

14 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Moulin Rouge is one of the few musicals I can sit through. I have a weak spot for gushing, unapologetic love stories (not the cynical shit you normally get in romcoms). Love Actually is also on my List of Shame.

BTW, I just noticed that he acted in six episodes of A Country Practice back when he was starting out; that's a show I haven't thought about in decades.

I don’t mind a gushy musical, it’s just his style that doesn’t do it for me. Richard Curtis films too also make me puke.

[accies1874]

"She's all that" is absolutely brilliant. The characters are wonderfully written and the cast is great. Freddie Prinze jr is always highly likeable and I loved him in this. Also Rachel Lee Cook is an all time crush of mine. The dance scene at the prom to "funk soul brother" is a joy. Kevin Pollack as her dad is a tremendous choice too. Man, I need to watch this again.
I disagree with you a bit about Baby Driver. I felt that Lily Collins' charisma and chemistry with Baby lent real heart to the movie, and Ansel Elgort's blankness was ideal for that character. Jon Hamm was the absolute stand out in that film though. Great actor and great character. Superb soundtrack too.

Most of those teen movies live or die on their cast of characters. Just cast Matthew Lillard and you're halfway there to success imo.

Agree about Jon Hamm, but I don't think I'll ever get on board with Ansel Elgort. Think he's cancelled anyway.

Not sure whether to see Elvis. Absolutely detest, to the point of my skin crawling, Baz Lurman’s other films.
(didn’t mind Romeo and Juliet but not seen it since it first came out).

I'd seen the opening of R&J millions of times at school and uni, so ended up disappointed the first time I saw the rest of the film as it wasn't anywhere near as interesting as that opening. That was a few years ago though.

[accies1874]

101. Heathers (1988)* - Prime 

Conflicted about this. On the one hand, I could feel that I was in the process of watching something that might be one of my all-time favourites. On the other, I had an idea incredibly similar to this, so every passing scene, character introduction, costume and line of dialogue made me feel like Butters in the Simpsons Did It episode of South Park. 

102. Creep (2014)* - Netflix 

It’s a two-hander horror called Creep which has its villain in the poster and has had a sequel released. I knew all these details going into it, yet it still managed to me an incredibly intense and surprising experience. It botches its best scare, though, and for that it cannot be forgiven.

103. Creep 2 (2017)* - Netflix

An interesting approach to a horror sequel that’s about 80% character study and 20% horror. 

104 - 106. Indiana Jones Trilogy - DVD

I don’t think I’d watched any of these start-to-finish since I was in primary school (had seen bits of 2 and found it pretty insufferable).

The first is the most exciting despite Indie essentially being an empty vessel to allow the set-pieces to happen.

The second has a fun James Bond opening, Short Round is actually quite funny but probs racist and Willie is honestly awful. I realised when we got to the temple in this one that these are actually more theme park rides than the Marvel stuff. This one turns into a literal dark ride. It’s fun and unbelievably well made, but there’s very little to separate it from what Disneyland has to offer. Much cheaper to experience, I suppose. In a weird way, the practical sets and effects actually make it feel more like a rollercoaster than everything being CGI.

Third is the slowest and the one that tries to flesh out the character a wee bit more. Maybe the most cartoonish, too, which is quite weird, plus the dodgier effects push it all even more towards a Marvel picture.

107. The Hills Have Eyes (1977)* - Arrow

Grim viewing. Not even an abundance of gore or sleaze, just sheer intensity with bad things happening to decent characters.

108. Sleepaway Camp (1983)* - YouTube

I was so bored. Then came a batshit final shot that’ll implant itself into your mind. I wasn’t too sure about the tone and I actually think it might be a bit better second time around once I know what it’s going for.

109. Friday the 13th (1980) - Digital Rental

Still has the best jumpscare of all time, plus the creepy breathing score; it’s also still a Halloween knock-off. It shoots its load/kill count quite early compared to other slashers, so I was left a bit taken aback that I had more than 30 minutes to go with more around half the characters offed. Made for a more tense finale rather than exciting, which I liked. 

110. Deadpool 2 (2018)* - Channel 4

It's Deadpool (2016) but with bigger action and no surprise factor. Plenty of folk will enjoy that but for me it made the bad parts of the original more apparent as they didn't have the shock factor and rebelliousness of the 2016 one. 

[JustOneCornetto]

Watched a few films on Netflix over last few days

Girl In The Picture (2022) - very disturbing documentary about the mysterious death of a young woman and the subsequent kidnapping of her son. Just gets weirder and weirder as the story unfolds. 7.5/10

Up In The Air (2009) - George Clooney lives out of a suitcase as he flies all over America in his consultancy role firing people in big corporations. There's some good satire and Vera Farmiga is pretty good as his love interest before Anna Kendrick arrives on the scene threatening to take over his role using an online screen link to do his job. Has it's moments and quite enjoyed it. 6/10

History Of Future Folk (2012) - this is pretty bonkers and difficult to explain the plot, basically two aliens from the planet Hondo discover music and end up forming a bluegrass band playing in a dingy club in New York. It's all very silly, never takes itself too seriously and has a certain charm to it. 6.5/10

The Man From Toronto (2022) - Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson in a case of mistaken identity. One of them is a deadly assasin (no need to guess who) and what transpires is lots of fighting, shooting, car chases and things exploding. A younger audience will probably find it quite exciting but not really my cup of tea. 5/10

Edited July 15, 2022 by JustOneCornetto

[Stellaboz]

Everything Everywhere. All at once.

This was madder than a box of frogs.

[accies1874]

111. Uncharted (2022)* - Torrent

I recently played through the four-and-a-bit Uncharted games so thought I’d give this a watch. It started off OK – not good, but not actually dreadful – but the longer it went on and the more I thought about it, the worse it got.

It starts with a flash-forward that’s hard to care about, then a flash-back purely designed to provide boring backstory/obvious foreshadowing, then the ‘present’ with Tom Holland speaking to a dull character who never appears again, then Marky Mark appears. It was all way too sudden for an origin story and made it feel like huge chunks of introductory scenes had been left out. Tom Holland and Marky Mark are already doing a job together after like two short scenes where they meet for the first time. Like I said, if this weren’t an origin story then that might’ve worked, but it is, and it was jarring.

Speaking of things being missing, there are two moments/scenes that I think have been messed around with either in the edit or in reshoots. The very first scene has Tom Holland apologising when folk die (fair enough), but due to that being a flash-forward, I was asking myself why he was cool with bottling folk and getting into huge fights chronologically prior to this scene. It’s almost like Tom Holland knows it’s the opening of the film and they had to try and establish his character in a kick-ass action scene that's been moved to the start because the opening is otherwise uneventful and they might’ve botched the scene initially.

Also, there’s one moment that is just bizarre. Tom Holland and Chloe are lost at sea for a few seconds. Suddenly, Chloe spots something.

Chloe: “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

Tom Holland: “Holy shit.”

Sounds like something dramatic’s gonna be at sea with them, huh? They don’t show a reverse shot in an attempt to build tension, so it’s gotta be something cool.

Nah, the next shot is them arriving on a nice beach which doesn’t have an effect on anything other than being a backdrop. It’s so weird and it made me wonder what they initially had in store and why it was cut.

On a positive note, I did quite like that they tried to use action to define Tom Holland’s character, but it’s such a muddled, nondescript, played-out character that they even fumbled that too. Tbh those three words sum the film up: muddled, nondescript and played-out. It’s riddled with clichés simply added to the story because everyone else does it, including an unintelligible Scottish character – how novel! It’s completely devoid of any dramatic tension, there’s not really a villain of any note, and it has the feel of something released 10-15 years ago complete with a predictable pre-credits dramatic reveal setting up a sequel that’ll never happen.

Marky Mark did crack me up. He’s clearly only there for the dolla and his character needed much more than his half-assed performance to carry how shit it is. His dialogue is so corny that I got to the stage where I was convinced he was an adult playing a child. Also, his big Character Arc Climax is daft. Might as well put it in spoilers.

Spoiler

He has a choice of saving Tom Holland or keeping his gold – fine. The issue is that he’s able to do both. He can chuck his gold into helicopter, grab Tom Holland and go on their merry way. The winch will likely still collapse and even if it doesn’t, just kick her off if she makes it on? In principle, it kinda works (even if it isn’t really developed well throughout) but they wrote themselves into a position where even the big character moment was lacklustre.

112. The Black Phone (2022)* - Cinema

Think I quite liked this one. The dialogue and tone wobble a bit, and some performances are really bad, but it’s brutal when it needs to be, occasionally tense, and makes good use of its simple concept. “Boy trapped in villain’s basement, how they gonna escape?” That sort of progression of the premise was more engaging to me than most of the horror, plus the red herrings are effective and the setups are mostly knocked down. If you can get through the opening 20 minutes of bad performances and dialogue (which mostly disappear), then it’s a good way to pass the time as a tight thriller. 

There are flashes of Scott Derrickson being capable of doing a really creepy low-budget arty horror, but I’m not actually sure he’s done any from looking at his Wikipedia. Sinister, from memory, had flashes of real creepiness somewhat detached from the main story, too, so I’d be more interested in that than the bizarre decision to let him do perhaps the most forgettable MCU film I’ve seen. 

[DeeTillEhDeh]

I've just switched off Ad Astra after an hour - so no rating - genuinely bored the pants off me - even the action scenes.

It's not a sci-fi but a pretentious arthouse film masquerading as a sci-fi.

[LoonsYouthTeam]

Everything Everywhere. All at once.
This was madder than a box of frogs.

Just watched that tonight. I enjoyed it, but yeah it's unusual! My wife hated it so I'm now not allowed to suggest the next film we watch [emoji38]

[Theroadlesstravelled]

On 15/07/2022 at 05:03, JustOneCornetto said:

Watched a few films on Netflix over last few days

Girl In The Picture (2022) - very disturbing documentary about the mysterious death of a young woman and the subsequent kidnapping of her son. Just gets weirder and weirder as the story unfolds. 7.5/10

Up In The Air (2009) - George Clooney lives out of a suitcase as he flies all over America in his consultancy role firing people in big corporations. There's some good satire and Vera Farmiga is pretty good as his love interest before Anna Kendrick arrives on the scene threatening to take over his role using an online screen link to do his job. Has it's moments and quite enjoyed it. 6/10

History Of Future Folk (2012) - this is pretty bonkers and difficult to explain the plot, basically two aliens from the planet Hondo discover music and end up forming a bluegrass band playing in a dingy club in New York. It's all very silly, never takes itself too seriously and has a certain charm to it. 6.5/10

The Man From Toronto (2022) - Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson in a case of mistaken identity. One of them is a deadly assasin (no need to guess who) and what transpires is lots of fighting, shooting, car chases and things exploding. A younger audience will probably find it quite exciting but not really my cup of tea. 5/10

 

They way Clooney goes through airport security in Up In The Air is orgasmic. 

The antithesis of me and the wife taking 10 minutes to go through security with 2 overhead bags, 2 underseat bags, her handbag, a random bag from the shop, trying to carry my shoes and my jeans falling down cause I had to take my belt off.