What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Arch Stanton]

15 minutes ago, Lyle Lanley said:

Always wanted to watch this but can't find the full film 

Don't say I'm not good to you...

https://archive.org/details/threads_201712

ETA...don't blame me if you have nightmares tonight.

Edited August 1, 2023 by Arch Stanton

[MSU]

51 minutes ago, Lyle Lanley said:

Always wanted to watch this but can't find the full film anywhere. 

 

42 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

Don't say I'm not good to you...

https://archive.org/details/threads_201712

ETA...don't blame me if you have nightmares tonight.

Lyle, you may want to have a support puppy at the ready.

[Miguel Sanchez]

Deep Impact (1998): Emotionally manipulative bullshit. Morgan Freeman is the leader of the free world and I'm cheering for the meteor to destroy the earth. 

Rain Man (1988): The Wikipedia page for this film claims the film raised awareness of autistic spectrum disorders when it was released. I can only hope this is true, because watching it just made me feel very uncomfortable. Tom Cruise is an android who learns how different humans think. The day after I watched this Lisa's Substitute was on TV, so the film remains the second best thing I've seen which ends with Dustin Hoffman leaving on a train as the main character ponders how he altered their view of the world and themselves.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001): I went to see this on a school trip when it was released. It was probably the first film I'd seen based on a book I knew, and since I was 9 I'd obviously read however many books there were at that time enough to know them off by heart. The film was not a perfect recreation of what I had seen in my mind, so naturally it was the worst thing in the world. Watching it now, I realise I misunderstood it. Absolutely hysterical. No wonder Americans think British people all talk that way.

Underwater (2020): Kristen Stewart has seen Alien at some point in her life and obviously felt like shaving her head and running around a narrow, poorly-lit engineering location in her undies. The main difference is that Alien has tension, suspense, action, characterisation, coherent camerawork and good acting. I've just looked it up and discovered it apparently cost at least fifty million dollars to make. It must have gone on waterproofing Kristen's eyeshadow which remains flawless throughout. 

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019): I saw about ten minutes near the end of this when it was on TV as I went to bed. I decided to watch until I could understand what was going on. Someone who isn't Tobey Maguire does some extremely unconvincing CGI to try and stop a guy from using a bunch of drones to make it look like Tower Bridge is being attacked. My understanding of Marvel is that there about a hundred films that are all like this. God help us all.

Edited August 1, 2023 by Miguel Sanchez

[Guest]

On 25/07/2023 at 13:54, coprolite said:

Saw the opening half hour of Dune (2021) then fell asleep. It was definitely telling the story better than the Lynch version. Looks like a tv movie with a big CGI budget and the music was an intrusive drone. Showed just enough to make me want to watch it when I’m less tired, but not sure I’d have felt the same if I wasn’t a bit of a sci fi nerd. 

How did they build the massive concrete headquarters on a world with no water? And don't say Postcrete.

[Fullerene]

4 hours ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

Deep Impact (1998): Emotionally manipulative bullshit. Morgan Freeman is the leader of the free world and I'm cheering for the meteor to destroy the earth. 

In Jaws, there was a real shooting star that appears in the film purely by chance.

Spielberg added it artificially into some of his other films as something of a trademark.

It was inevitable he would eventually make an entire film about something similar.

[Lyle Lanley]

10 hours ago, Arch Stanton said:

Don't say I'm not good to you...

https://archive.org/details/threads_201712

ETA...don't blame me if you have nightmares tonight.

 

9 hours ago, MSU said:

 

Lyle, you may want to have a support puppy at the ready.

Just finished watching it. 

That's my nightmares sorted for the future. 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

15 hours ago, MSU said:

 

Lyle, you may want to have a support puppy at the ready.

And some bulky pee pants

[Squalor Vic]

Oppenheimer

Really enjoyed it, a ream throwback film that doesn't really get made on this scale very often. Seen some comparisons to JFK, which I get, though I'd say JFK is a lot more thrilling/entertaining. 

Top drawer across the board from everyone and, like Babylon which I watched earlier in the week, I was never bored through the 3 hours.

Quite amazing how little I knew of Oppenheimer and this whole story tbh, despite it being 'the most important thing to ever happen in the fucking world' (to paraphrase Matt Damon's character)

[Miguel Sanchez]

The Departed (2006) Do you think people from Boston get sick of the Dropkick Murphys? I would. Thanks to this film I've also learned there's a Wikipedia article titled "List of films that most frequently use the word f**k" which is very amusing. An assortment of famous people go looking for a rat. They all find one, one way or another. I still don't think I know how the film ends the way it does.

Memento (2000) Man with very bad tattoos has an extremely bad day. I actually paid attention while watching this trying to follow the black and white sequences, which is sort of the point. I don't think the payoff is very rewarding though.

Sully (2016) As I watched this I thought the scenes with the NTSB were a bit ridiculous. As I was watching I looked the film up, and saw that this was noted and generally agreed with which I found reassuring. When the film finished and DIRECTED BY CLINT EASTWOOD appeared on screen, everything made sense. If I'm on a plane I want men with spectacular moustaches flying it. Or at least Tom Hanks. 

Moon (2009) Man on the moon discovers it's clones all the way down. Perhaps it's a symptom of a film like this being made and well-received, but I feel as if the classic science fiction questions explored in this are things I've seen in Black Mirror or other anthology series. It's a good performance from Sam Rockwell and the premise wasn't actually what I thought it was, so I'll give it points for that.

Predator (1987) What a fucking film this is. Immaculate. The irony is I could see humans, millennia from now when we can travel far enough in space, taking on the role of the Predator, going to other planets and hunting for sport. Cheating, as we use our thermal vision, invisibility armour and mounted laser guns to kill some poor buggers who don't know we're there. 

[MSU]

151 Midsommar (#89 in the A24 series) -- What a long and odd way for a woman to get revenge on her asshole boyfriend. I'm not sure if I enjoyed this quite as much as Hereditary, but it's close. The colors are incredible, as is Florence Pugh, and everything is so beautifully unhinged that I think I found it funnier (in a weird way) on this viewing. It is overlong, though, and it seems to revel in how overlong it actually is, and while I can appreciate that indulgence from time to time, I think I'd have been less fidgety if it came in closer to the two-hour mark. That said, a great piece of folk-horror, far scarier for it all being out there in the daylight. 9/10

152 Talk to Me (#137 in the A24 series) -- Maybe not the ideal movie to go see if your wife collects disembodied ceramic hands. Yikes. I can go either way on Australian horror movies these days. For every Babadook, it seems, there's a Run Rabbit Run. Despite showing considerable early promise, Talk to Me kinda falls in the middle of the two. A great premise of a spooky hand reportedly from a medium and covered in a graffitied cast that when you grasp it and say Talk to Me, it connects you to a spirit. A bunch of teenagers abuse this ability when one of them is connected to her deceased mother and things go very awry after that. It's pretty spooky, unflinchingly gory in places, and maybe a little predictable in the finale, but it's nice to see a couple of YouTubers get some A24 backing here and turn in a bit of a money-maker. 7/10

153 Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case -- I vaguely remember this story from the news back in 2000 or so but the wider case of Japanese millionaire, Joji Obara, and his suspected 400 victims was new to me and is shocking stuff. The documentary is a very Netflix documentary. I mean, you know what you're going to get before you click play as the story is told through the talking heads of Lucie's dad, a reporter, and the Japanese detectives who worked the case. Despite all this available insight, it seems reluctant or perhaps unable to go into the broader issues here, such as the societal issues that allowed one man to commit so many horrific crimes, the other victims are hardly named never mind heard, and also the effect this had on the Blackman family is left beyond arm's length. It feels like the focus is only on part of the story but then doesn't tell all of that either. A sad and tragic tale but it misses out on so much. 5/10

154 Piranha -- I've been meaning to go through a Joe Dante rewatch for a while and with Meg 2 out this week, I finally got round to starting here, a B movie rip-off of Jaws that is so obvious in its intentions that they have the heroine playing a Jaws video game at the start and Dick Miller doing his best Murray Hamilton impression. The piranha are hilariously bad as they statically move through the water, they sound like bees, the wounds are about as convincing as the acting, but it's good, stupid, fun and Dante's sense of humor ("They're eating the guests, sir") is put to hilarious use. 6/10

155 Piranha II: The Spawning -- There are a few surprising things about this movie. First, it's directed by James "Yes, That One" Cameron. Second, it's not exactly a cash grab seeing as it came four years after Joe Dante's effort, so one can assume that some thought and time went into it. Third, given the first two, this is perhaps one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It's flat, pointless, meandering, slow, humorless, and absolutely no fun to watch. It also seems that halfway through filming, someone decided to themselves, f**k it, let's make the piranha fly. I know there's some debate over how much Cameron was involved, and the mostly Italian crew couldn't speak much English which just confused and frustrated everyone, but it's frankly incredible that within 24 months of this coming out, the next movie to have Cameron's name on it would be The Terminator. Saw it for free on YouTube. Still feel ripped off. 1/10

156 The Terminator -- I'm really not sure why this scores so well for me because it really isn't all that good. The SFX have not aged well, the score outside of the main theme is dreadful, the acting isn't significantly better than Piranha 2, and the movie takes lengthy pauses from the action so that Michael Biehn can deliver a few pages of exposition to Linda Hamilton. And that's before we mention anything about it not making a lick of sense. All this said, my first rewatch in 20 years was still pretty enjoyable. The scenes in the nightclub and the police station are gripping and brutal and my inner thirteen-tear-old cheers with glee at famous lines. All this goodwill, of course, doesn't detract from the fact that it's nowhere near as good as T2. 7/10

157 Meg 2: The Trench -- I quite like Ben Wheatley movies and I was fairly ambivalent about the first Meg movie from 2018, so I was curious to see how the two would mash up in this sequel. Turns out, it's less of the former and more of the latter. Jason Statham returns as Jonas Taylor along with a few of his buddies from the first movie and he leads an exploratory expedition to the Mariana Trench but discovers that his efforts have been deliberately sabotaged by a horrible billionaire corporate lady or whatever, happy to trade environmental efforts for the almighty dollar. A lot of that stuff is pretty dull, and an awful lot of it is missing any kind of big shark action. This picks up, and the movie picks up, and it starts to be a bit more fun -- ironically enough when we get to the Fun Island portion -- but by that point, I'd kinda made up my mind to be disappointed. In a sequel, I think it's acceptable to have an expectation for the bigger and grander even if that is at the expense of any sense being made, and while the sight of Statham on a jet-ski with explosive harpoons does try, it's really just not enough. 4/10

[accies1874]

29 & 31. Talktomeimer - Cinema

Talk to Oppenheimer? Talktoppenheimer? Doesn't matter, it's the double bill EVERYONE'S been talking about. Or at least, everyone who isn't brave enough to see Barbie in the cinema yet. I first saw Oppenheimer a couple of weeks ago but rewatched it in IMAX this week before going for Talk to Me later that day, which was better than the only other double bill I've done (Bombshell and Jojo Rabbit in 2020) but still question marks over both films. 

Oppenheimer:

It took me a long time for me to get settled into the hectic rhythm of this - especially the first time around - mostly as a result of the non-linear narrative and snappy scenes which comes across as a bit strangely structured. That isn't inherently bad, but I felt that it did diminish some reflection that should come about in the final act and I did get a bit lost on a few occasions - the little flashes of a character whenever they were mentioned were much appreciated. However, it's impressive that a 3-hour film can maintain such an intense pace while staying true to its intentions as a character study. I remember there being a bit of a narrative around Tenet that Nolan losing his editor and composer had a detrimental impact on it, but while I have no real insight into editing, it massively stands out here (as a slight negative in terms of getting settled, but that's a necessary sacrifice for the overall pacing/intensity imo) and in a lot of Jennifer Lame's other work for a variety of reasons. Christopher Nolan is more often than not the star of his films, and it's class that there's still a director with that pull through name only, but they still remain remembered for those collaborative efforts too. It's also easy to take for granted just how good a Christopher Nolan/Hoyte van Hoytema films looks, but similar to Dunkirk, the depth of colours is just an absolute joy to behold. I was really glad I decided to give it a go in IMAX (the first time I've gone to an IMAX screening), and I don't care what anyone says, I thought the crazy sound mixing was another necessary sacrifice to pack a punch in certain moments, especially around the time of the bomb going off. He's not got the prestige of Tarantino, Scorsese etc, but he's a brilliant event filmmaker whose latest film is doing gangbusters despite not being the kind of thing that appeals to mass audiences anymore. 

Oppenheimer's a really interesting character, but I did find myself longing for better execution in the final act which dragged on both watches. The idea of watching him getting dragged through the mud for his own determination and success had really effective moments. I've not seen Cillian Murphy lead in anything other than a couple of Danny Boyle films, but Nolan gives him a lot to do in order to pack an emotional punch through the lines of boring scientific dialogue, especially with those closeups, and I think he absolutely aced it. RDJ plays a version of himself that we've become used to - weirdly enough, Sherlock Holmes was the one I thought of the most - but there's undoubtedly enough of a difference from those roles that makes it a worthwhile performance. It's a shame that Florence Pugh and Emily Blunt blend into the supporting cast of such a jam-packed lineup, but at least Blunt gets one scene to truly flex her muscles. It is Cillian Murphy, RDJ and a million others though. 

While I found the last act a bit of a drag, I liked that it existed. The film could've ended bang-on two hours once the bomb successfully exploded, and there will have been many other biopics where such an event was the conclusion, but this needed that extra hour to go further into the psychology behind a cataclysmic event. That said, I did feel that said psychological exploration peaked shortly after the explosion. We all know the scene I'm talking about where Oppenheimer is giving a speech to the Los Alamos residents - it's absolutely horrific in its decision to isolate certain sounds and pair that with some effective imagery and Murphy's performance. The next hour or so after that is more about how he responds to his emotions in that scene, which is all encapsulated in a line earlier in the film that I can't for the life of me remember, but none of that is depicted in as interesting a way. 

Dunkirk is still the gold standard of post-TDK Christopher Nolan imo (the holy trilogy of Memento, The Prestige and The Dark Knight, then Dunkirk), but I liked Oppenheimer a lot more than TDKR, Interstellar and Tenet so it's probably on a par with Inception in terms of being great but with big turn-offs. 

Talk to Me

As with most horror movies, it starts out with an impressive opening scene which made me excited for what was to come, but I was seriously let down. There are moments of look-away brutality, however it just never, ever scared me; maybe a couple of creepy images and surprises, just not a prolonged period of tension or atmosphere. I much preferred the character interactions earlier on when it was just being a drama - a pretty pleasant drama at that. This did make the bad shit more effective as I cared about the characters, although I found it to be a bit uneven tonally between the modern teen partying, some corny family stuff and ultra serious "elevated horror" fare.

I'll also say that it tackled the theme of addiction in an interesting way by concealing it within a film about grief and absent figures to show how addictions creep into people's lives. 

[MSU]

15 minutes ago, accies1874 said:

29 & 31. Talktomeimer 

Extra greenies for that.

[Wee-Bey]

MEG 2: The Trench

Watched this in 3d. Cheesy and ridiculous but also some fun in places, with the world's most serious man Jason Statham trying to stab giant sharks. Lame jokes, annoying teenager along for the ride and stereotypical baddies amongst the lowlights. Not as good as the 1st film. I'm sure we'll end up with a 3rd edition as well.

[Mark Connolly]

2 hours ago, accies1874 said:

It's a shame that Florence Pugh and Emily Blunt blend into the supporting cast of such a jam-packed lineup, but at least Blunt gets one scene to truly flex her muscles.

TBF, wee Flo was flexing her muscles in a couple of scenes too...

[BFTD]

Barbie (cinema) - the famous plastic doll comes to the real world after sensing that her owner is depressed.

The Meg 2 was sold out, which hasn't happened to me in years, while Oppenheimer and Talk to Me didn't have a showing for a few hours, so we opted for the fourth choice.

This was weird as f**k. The first half or so was quite pleasant, giving us a tour of the utterly vapid Barbie World, with plenty of amusing (but not laugh out loud funny) moments, and a terrific cast essentially making the picture by throwing themselves into it with gusto. Unfortunately, it slowly becomes a piece about the evils of the patriarchy, which seemed like it could be fun in a Barbie context until it really kicks in and is just quite depressing and preachy, with several long (and eye-rollingly dire) monologues that amount to the filmmakers talking directly to the audience - criminally lazy screenwriting.

Overall it's a propaganda piece from a toy company that seems desperate to justify its product's existence and to reframe Barbie's conception, to the point of almost deifying her creator. It's very, very strange; you'd think Mattel had been accused of war crimes or something, rather than selling superficial plastic dolls to tots. I can well imagine MRAs and Incels being up in arms, and there's bound to have been a DeSantis-type politician trying to make hay out of "woke Barbie", but the truth is that it becomes quite dull and plodding by the end after a promising start, and it's a shame it was used as a vehicle to rehabilitate Mattel (who seem to think people are way more upset with the concept of Barbie than they really are these days).

[Boo Khaki]

Meh, Sindy >>> Barbie in any case. 

 

There should be a Ken Loach Sindy movie, probably starring Maxine Peake, where she works part-time on an underwear assembly line in some shithole in the north of England, the foreman is a lecherous pig, she permanently has a Benson hanging from her gub, and the one highlight in her life is getting pished on Babycham at the bingo with her pal Maureen.

I'd totally go to the cinema to see that. I'd even wear a pinny and put my curlers in.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Boo Khaki

[JustOneCornetto]

(56) Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case (2023) – Netflix

I do like these real-life murder cases that Netflix do but this one felt a bit incomplete. I agree with MSU’s review that there was so much more to tell. I couldn’t really remember this case but the whole documentary seemed to be more about the father who seems to be pretty well off and was able to spend a lot of time in Tokyo noising up the Police and trying to raise the profile of the search for his daughter. You also see a lot of him in present day telling the story of how it all panned out but you never get a sense of grief from him. From what I’ve read subsequently the Police were very inept and slow to bring Obara to justice but the documentary tends to paint them otherwise. 5.5/10

(57) Happiness For Beginners (2023) – Netflix

Quite liked this, there’s nothing complex or out of the ordinary about it. it’s all light-hearted and easy to watch. Ellie Kemper is pretty good as Helen who has been divorced a year and decides to go on an organised hiking trip on the Appalachian Trail along with a quirky bunch of other novices. The romance part of it is pretty predictable but never too schmaltzy and the run time is just about right with no padding out for the sake of it, also some great scenic shots along the way. 6.5/10

(58) Maggie Moore(s) (2023) – Sky Cinema

I was really looking forward to this as it seemed to be a Coen Brothers style film with John Hamm and Nick Mohammed, both of whom I like, as an unlikely Cop duo investigating the murder of two women called Maggie Moore. It’s directed by John Slattery another of my favourite actors from Mad Men plus Tina Fey, who is always good, as Hamm’s love interest and also plays a good part as a nosy neighbour  but while there is some good dry humour it never reaches the quality of Fargo. 6/10

Edited August 7, 2023 by JustOneCornetto

[Wee-Bey]

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1

Even though the Mission Impossible films are a bit shit, they're also a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. This one however didn't quite hit the mark with its AI plot and average set peices. Atwell may end up a decent acquisition for the franchise after being brought in to replace Fergie. Simon Pegg looks quite old now too which is one of my main takeaways from the film, which sums it up I guess.

[scottsdad]

Barbie.

I enjoyed it more than I should. 

If anyone is passing by the Falkirk retail park later on, can they please nip to Cineworld and collect my testicles? I think I left them there last night. 

[LowerLeagueFC]

The Dark Knight.

a timeless classic, Ledger, Oldman and Bale fantastic.