What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[mathematics]

Rewatched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers today. Absolute classic and in no way has outdated values that cause outrage among folk. 

[scottsdad]

1 hour ago, JustOneCornetto said:

(95) The Blind Side (2009) – itvBe

Based on a true story with Sandra Bullock playing Leigh Ann Tuoy who took a teenage black boy into her family, as he had nowhere to live, and nurtured and encouraged him till and helped him get drafted into NFL because of his massive build. On the face of it this is inspiring and heartwarming, but I felt the film itself was too sickly sweet and didn’t give me that sense of realism, probably didn’t help also that I haven’t a clue about American Football and the whole Draft hullabaloo.  5/10

Not quite so sickly sweet in real life

Michael Oher, subject of The Blind Side, and 'adoptive parents' in legal feud

[Mark Connolly]

Ferrari

Absolutely tremendous. Penelope Cruz is incredible as his wife

[MSU]

The final batch of movies in 2023 although I may watch Bottoms again tonight. Or Paddington 2. Or both. Quite happy to see around 75 new releases this year and more than get my money's worth out of the equivalent of the Cineworld Unlimited card they have over here. It's been a fun year reading everyone else's reviews and getting tips on some class films I wouldn't otherwise have known about. Happy New Year to everyone on the thread! 

262 Poor Things -- I've been a fan of Yorgos Lanthimos's work since The Lobster so I was looking forward to this quite a bit, not hindered in any way by Emma Stone who I think I've enjoyed in most movies of hers I've seen. But for a couple of hours after the opening frames, I sat with a really quizzical look on my face as the story unraveled and as the end credits rolled, I don't think my expression flinched. Bella, Emma Stone, is the creation of Willem Dafoe's Godwin Baxter, who rescued her dead body from a river and, seeing she was pregnant, replaced her brain with that of the unborn baby and reanimated her and then continued to experiment as he raised her. As you do. Overall, there's plenty to like and admire about it. The costumes and set design and overall steampunk presentation are all wonderful, and I don't think there's a bad performance in it. I just don't know that the movie is saying what it thinks it's saying. It works far better as a statement of how men are uniformly shit rather than it being some feminist anthem. I do think there's a segment of movie-goers who think a movie is a testament to feminism when the character goes into prostitution "for her own reasons" or as a declaration of "empowerment", or where the leading lady spends long periods of the movie naked -- (TBF the lot, btw). I'm absolutely no expert on feminism and don't claim to be, but this seems to fall a bit short for me and I'm not sure what's supposed to be empowering about this. Despite all this, Emma Stone deserves a tip of the hat for putting herself through this and she unquestionably went all-in, and she's a bit of a tour de force here. Special praise also to the sound design and Jerskin Fendrix's discordant score which came pretty close to giving me a panic attack, which I hope it was trying to do. 4/10

263 The Boy and the Heron -- During World War II, teenaged Mahito is still haunted by the loss of his mother in a bombing raid while his father relocates him to the country to introduce him to his new step-mother, with the two women bearing a resemblance to each other. His world is already upside down when he starts to notice the presence of a heron with a grotesque voice who insists Mahito's arrival has been long-awaited. What follows is a tale of fantasy, magic realism, and dream logic as Mahito is lured into a mysterious tower where timelines are inexact, budgies are lethal, and the heron insists that his mother is not dead after all. It's a beautifully imagined story of loss and guilt and while I won't pretend to have picked up everything that Miyazaki presented, it was more than enough to be invested and moved. The hand-drawn animation strikes an interesting balance where it can be remarkable in one moment -- a scene where Mahito takes a sip from a glass bottle is just exquisite -- while appearing fairly rudimentary in others, and the soundtrack is sparse and gentle so in a warm movie theater, especially where the story dips in the middle, it might be necessary to go get another coffee to avoid being lulled to sleep by the gentleness of it all. 8/10

264 Ferrari -- Motor racing is boring. Motor racing movies are usually boring. Michael Mann's biopic of Enzo Ferrari mercifully doesn't linger too much on the motor racing side of things. This isn't, much to my surprise, another Ford vs Ferrari (which I loved and is the exception to the rule) and instead it's a bit of an examination of a man fighting against the relentless devastating threats to his legacy. On the track, he struggles to produce a winning team with drivers that keep dying on him, in the boardroom he struggles to keep his company from falling into bankruptcy, and outside he struggles to cope with the loss of his son, Dino, the distance this has created with his wife, Laura, and his mistress who wants their son to adopt his rightful last name. Adam Driver is pretty good once your brain works out to handle Adam Driver putting on an Italian accent. Penélope Cruz, though, is as excellent as you'd imagine as Laura. It's a ponderous affair that has the feel of a European soap opera and it's only in the last act, curiously during the 1957 Mille Miglia race round Italy, where thanks to my lack of knowledge or interest in men racing cars meant that I was able to find something to raise the pulse. From now on, any movie about motor racing that uses more than one shot of a gearbox or a clutch being depressed will automatically be docked a point. 6/10

265 May December -- There's something just beautifully surreal about this black comedy about sexual abuse and grooming, and I think it all starts with the over-the-top score that deliberately makes everything feel like it's the most dramatic thing you're ever likely to see, like Julianne Moore's character realizing she's run out of hot dogs. Natalie Portman plays Elizabeth, a movie actor who will be the lead in a movie about woman who, when she was in her thirties, had a relationship with a thirteen-year-old boy, the scandal that surrounded it, and the relationship which remains to this day. Elizabeth visits the couple and their surrounding friends and family in the lead-up to their children graduating from High School in an attempt to understand them better. This does lead to the rather odd moment where Julianne Moore, in character of course, is in awe of Natalie Portman. They're both very good in their roles. Moore's Gracie is an odd, naive kind of character who doesn't see what she did wrong all those years ago, but she's careful to keep some cards close to her chest. Elizabeth, on the other hand, will have nothing to do with these people in a few weeks so has no issue learning what she can from whoever she can as she researches the damage this this affair caused and continues to cause. At the side of all this is Chris Melton as Joe, the boy in the affair who is now a man, the age that his wife was back at the start and he plods a rather sad path through the movie. Elizabeth speaks to him like a child and with his own children about to leave home for college, he finds himself at a terrifying crossroads in his life. A lovely metaphor to this is in the butterflies he raises, much to Elizabeth's continuing disgust. It's a very funny movie in places, not always score-dependent, but the questions it asks really are fascinating, and the power that this crime and this abuse from twenty years ago still holds very much proves that in a small community, nothing is ever truly forgotten. 9/10

266 Anatomy of a Fall -- I think if I hear the steel drum version of Fifty Cent's P.I.M.P. one more time in my life, it'll already be too soon. The song, though, plays a pivotal role in the start of this movie as Sandra Hüller -- who one of the performances of the year -- stars as writer Sandra who in her Grenoble ski lodge is being interviewed but her writer husband, Samuel, is being a dick renovating the attic as noisily as possible while listening to the steel drum version of PIMP at a ridiculous volume. The interview is suspended, the interviewer departs, and later that day Sandra's visually impaired son, Daniel, finds his father lying dead in the snow, seemingly having fallen from a third-floor window. After the initial investigation, Samuel's head wound suggests that this was more than a simple accident and Sandra is quickly arrested. The rest of the movie, more or less, deals with her trial for her husband's murder. A simple-sounding story transcends thanks to weaving threads and details and some incredible performances from Hüller and Milo Machado-Graner, who plays Daniel, along with a great supporting cast. It's difficult not to hate the prosecuting lawyer and have sympathy and pride with his equivalent on the defense side, and it's hard not to wonder how much director Justine Triet is playing on this. Plus if there was an Oscar for best dog-acting, I'd put the mortgage on Messi as Snoop picking it up. If this is anything like how French trials are conducted then holy shit, and for a courtroom drama and a film that's mostly people talking in rooms, I found it utterly captivating. It won the Palme D'Or this year and it's hard not to imagine it being nominated, unlike poor Messi, for a bucket of Oscars in a few weeks' time. Definitely one of the best movies of the year. 10/10

267 Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom -- I used to love the old Asterix books and even the newer ones aren't too bad, but I've never been much of a fan of the movies, particularly the live-action ones. This one doesn't even have the common sense to have Gérard Depardieu as Obelix. It does, however, look amazing. The sets and the costumes are pretty much perfect, but that's about all it has going for it. The storyline -- something about a Chinese empress coming to the little Gaulish village because reasons -- may be original but lacks the charm and humor of even the worst book (Asterix and the Falling Sky, without doubt) and long, long, LONG before it's two-hour runtime, it's something to be endured rather than enjoyed. 3/10

[RuMoore]

Recently watched two movies for the first time in a while. I used to pride myself of looking out for innovative films and watching classics but over the past decade perhaps YouTube has destroyed my brain matter and I can't stomach 3 hour films even though I could watch the equivalent on a load of shite. 

This is something I'd like to change, I wanna rediscover my inner film nerd so after not watching anything for a few years I'm pleased to say after a full rawdog Napoloean at the cinema since then I've watched both Barbie and The Truman Show. 

It wasn't purposefully so but both films had lots of similar aspects.

Barbie - 8/10 

It could have done with less Will Ferrell and more of Margot Robbie looking sensationally gorgeous. I watched it with my sister and my maw and they were heavy expecting me to be perturbed by the feminist type of agenda but I thought it was all well done, accurate and amusing, I shouldn't be but I'm actually surprised the turbo right wing yank bros were taking issue with it, it's purely just an hour or so of fun bits and purposefully tongue in cheek. 

The Truman Show - 9/10. 

I knew I'd love it from ages ago and it's one I wanted to see but by george it's fantastically done. The acting from all involved is top tier and considering when it's made it stands the test of time. Can see myself watching this pretty regularly. 

[Molotov]

I really enjoyed watching BlackBerry the other night.

Reminded me of my time with an IT startup I was involved with from the year 2000 where we went from zero to acquired in a relatively short time.

It was startling to see the depiction of the sales and the engineering groups and all the “deals” that go hand in hand with a startup. 

The company that bought us had a remarkable track record but I bailed out as soon as I could because it was clear they were haemorrhaging money. 

We were acquired by Sun Microsystems. 

Maybe one day a film will be made about the rise and fall of them?

 

[accies1874]

67. How to Have Sex - MUBI

I thought I was done with 2023 releases, but this recently dropped on MUBI having regrettably passed me by while it was in the cinema. And boy oh boy is it good!

Three teenage girls go on holiday to Ooh Ah Malia for sun, sex and a large side order of self-discovery. The early stages of the film absolutely perfectly set up the trio as people more than just characters, as their mannerisms and interactions with one another establish their personalities and relationships which ultimately also foreshadows some of what's to come. That's all done visually with incredibly natural dialogue - for a bunch of English partyers, anyway. Thank god it did such a good job with its visual storytelling because I did not have a scooby what some of them were saying at many points, purely due to the accents and colloquialisms. It's testament to the film that I immediately cared so much about them considering I'd give them the largest swerve imaginable were I to meet them irl, however the filmmaker, Molly Manning Walker, and actors managed to convey their unspoken backstories to give a sense as to why those loudmouths on you see on these types of holidays (like 17-year-old me) are acting like... that. There's also the sun-soaked aesthetic of being on holiday: bright pool parties, stuffy hotel rooms, fluorescent outfits and a hue that's not quite American Film Set in Mexico but does convey the setting well. 

The time spent setting up the three girls hides the fact that, after 30 mins or so, it does end up focussing on one in particular, Tara. One of her friends wants to Get Ass but also ends up getting grades too, the other Gets Grades but also ends up getting ass. So that leaves Tara stuck in the middle, pretty much getting neither, which makes it easy to sympathise with her as a lead, but, more importantly, it manages to depict the irony of loneliness while being surrounded by so many people, loneliness that either is borne out of her burgeoning self-discovery or vice versa (she is beginning to discover why she feels lonely). Loads of standard imagery like mirrors/reflections and the beach/sea which speaks to her looking into herself at an age where you're on the cusp of change.

I'm sure comparisons will have been made between this and Morvern Callar, Aftersun and probably Spring Breakers too as they were all at the forefront of my mind while watching. It shares the lingering feeling of dread and a focus on loneliness and discovery on holiday. I don't think its story is quite as ubiquitous as Aftersun's therefore it won't have the effect that that film had on so many people, however I'd still absolutely recommend it to people who loved how Aftersun's story was actually told. In a year where no film has stood out as a clear number one for me, How to Have Sex is certainly close to it. 

Edited December 31, 2023 by accies1874

[accies1874]

So that's a wrap for 2023.

330 total films watched starting with, strangely, a rewatch of Glass Onion and ending with How to Have Sex. 

244 first-time watches, some of which I've highlighted below as the best of the bunch.  

Spoiler

• Images
• Rashomon
• Office Space
• Love is Colder than Death
• Beware of a Holy Whore
• His Girl Friday
• Metropolis
• Mother Joan of the Angels
• La Notte
• Petite Maman
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
• Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight
• The Graduate
• Castle of Purity
• Apocalypse Now
• Paris, Texas
• Oslo, August 31st
• A Woman Under the Influence
• Funny Games
• Dazed and Confused
• The Long Goodbye
• My Summer of Love
• Out of the Past
• Battle Royale
• The Music Box
• The Ninth Configuration
• Network
• Bob Le Flambeur
• Le Doulous 

67 new releases was up on 62 from last years, and again I've picked out some faves in the order I saw them rather than just doing a top 10. 

• Enys Men
• Tar
• The Fabelmans
• Skinamarink
• Godland
• Close
• Reality
• Asteroid City
• Past Lives
• Sick
• The Killer
• Bottoms
• The Eternal Daughter
• Totem
• Earth Mama
• Fallen Leaves
• How to Have Sex

I also made it to the cinema 53 times, starting with a Rashomon re-release before finishing off the year with a Home Alone rerun, but the highlights were undoubtedly the twice I finally managed to be the only person in the screening - once for Missing and once for Past Lives (this made a great film even greater). 

[The Naitch]

Men Up - 8/10 (BBC iPlayer)

Based on the true story of the early trials of Viagra in the early 90s. Really good account of how it all came about with plenty of humour thrown in.

[sfha]

Watched Oppenheimer this afternoon. It's not a film I'd pick myself but the missus picked it out. Magnificent.

[MazzyStar]

On 27/12/2023 at 13:00, MSU said:

 

258 Road House -- Road House is of those demonstrably terrible movies that is difficult not to love. The premise that I never seemed to get far beyond is that lots of people in the movie have heard of two nightclub bouncers, because they're *that* good, unless of course, the plot dictates that they haven't heard of them. Bye-bye realism. Patrick Swayze is one of them who is hired to clean up the Double Deuce bar somewhere in Kansas (maybe), and he upsets the local hoodlums while winning the affections of the town doctor. It's nonsense. It tells you more than I probably care to share when I admit that I don't really remember much of the last twenty minutes from my teenage years as my interest kinda waned after Denise's little dance. I didn't miss much as all sense seems to be thrown aggressively out of the window by that point. But it's fun, and it's enjoyable, and not everything has to make sense. Right? 6/10

 

 

 

 

[Stellaboz]

Christmas at the Castle on Netflix.

Brook Shields writes books and visits fairytale Scotland where every village has a castle, the commoners are all friendly and the local pub has a knitting group that spontaneously bursts into song singing Loch Lomond poorly.

To a non native this film apparently shows the fairytale and romantic Scotland that everyone outside apparently sees.

Me, I see it as a pile of lies and nonsense.

The local Duke of caste Dun Dunbar (the guy who hacked his foot off in Saw) is the grumpy landowner who falls in love with Shields eventually. 

Castle Dun Dunbar (Dalmeny House) is based near the village of Dunbar pop. 140ish (Culross/S. Queensferry) and despite that is apparently a 2 hour ride from Edinburgh which is th closest place of note. 

Too much use of the word eejit for my liking but the hilarious randomness of the word dobber endeared me somewhat.

[Stellaboz]

Dune.

Fucking garbage. Nothing explained well and nobody worth caring about. Utter, utter garbage. 

Chased by sand worm. Repeat. Yawn. 

[Uncle Psychosis]

Watched the latest Mission Impossible. 

Utter shite, and I say that as someone that has quite enjoyed the rest of the franchise. Even the (fantastic) stunts can't redeem it. Genuinely baffled by the positive reviews. Too long and just too stupid, even for an MI film. 

[velo army]

On 02/01/2024 at 00:03, Uncle Psychosis said:

Watched the latest Mission Impossible. 

Utter shite, and I say that as someone that has quite enjoyed the rest of the franchise. Even the (fantastic) stunts can't redeem it. Genuinely baffled by the positive reviews. Too long and just too stupid, even for an MI film. 

Yup. I think movie fans are so polarised now that if a movie isn't overly pushing some sort of feminist agenda with a generous smattering of diversity then it's treated as a potential oscar winner. See also Maverick. 

The latest MI was absurdly long and I honestly didn't care about the AI antagonist either. 

And, as you say, everyone and everything was entirely stupid.

The lassie Atwell is marvellous, but I honestly find Rebecca Ferguson to be a great lump of wood.

[Pocketman]

9 hours ago, velo army said:

Yup. I think movie fans are so polarised now that if a movie isn't overly pushing some sort of feminist agenda with a generous smattering of diversity then it's treated as a potential oscar winner. See also Maverick. 

[scottsdad]

The Batman (2022)

Too boring, too long, too boring, too serious, such bad acting, so boring.

[Florentine_Pogen]

Denmark (BBC iPlayer) - Rafe Spall lives in a total shithole town in deepest darkest Wales. No job, no prospects, no money, no love interest, so he decides to go to Denmark to rob a bank and be incarcerated in a Danish jail 'cos a TV programme said that Danish prisoners get single rooms, flat screen TV's and individual showers.

Goes into bar in Esbjerg, sings old Tom Jones number, gets to know the gorgeous barmaid who takes him home (along with an Irish wolfhound which appears out of nowhere) meets her kid and mother, who thinks he's 'a hobo'. Tries to return to Wales but lack of cash ends up with him getting arrested after waving .22 gun around but ends up at beach festival with barmaid.

Meh....................... 

[Nkomo-A-Gogo]

Alone. Film4 

A young American woman decides to make a new start by packing her shit and heading north.

Has an awful time.

Really tense throughout.

I would recommend it and say 7.5/10

[BFTD]

On 04/01/2024 at 22:44, scottsdad said:

The Batman (2022)

Too boring, too long, too boring, too serious, such bad acting, so boring.

I know what you mean. They're desperate to find some new angle on Bats now. The idea of a Batman flick that aped serial killer movies was a decent idea, but they're still limited by The Franchise; both this and Joker are examples of films that likely wouldn't have been greenlit without the superhero tag attached, for better or worse. Speaking of which...

Aquaman in the Lost Kingdom or somesuch (cinema) - the lord of the fishes has to fight a zombie horde and that Manta Ray bloke; also break his brother out of jail. Who cares, this series is dead anyway.

I only just saw original Aquaman a few days ago, because nobody cares about the fishmaster, and found it surprisingly OK; one of the better films in this round of DC films, which admittedly isn't saying much. I only went to see volume two because I wanted to see a film at the local and had already seen Wonka and...you know, I quite enjoyed it. It's just a decent superhero film with an entertaining cast, plot themes shamelessly ripped off from Marvel's Thor series, and lots of big flashy CG, but it was a decent watch as far as I'm concerned.

I think the hostility towards it has maybe come from the superhero backlash, and the fact that everyone's amazed that Warner Bros is still releasing Snyderverse films years after announcing that they were finished with the whole thing. I'd suggest this one's about as good as the first couple of Thor films, better than the original Aquaman, and more engaging than a lot of what Marvel's been putting out lately. Aquaman's probably had the best series of films out of this run-through of DC's characters, which isn't something I thought I'd be saying.

Wonka (cinema) - origin story for Roald Dahl's deranged chocolate sadist.

Only watched this for Paterson Joseph after noticing he had a prominent role in the trailer (and the rest of the film, thankfully), and was crushed to discover early on that it's a musical. I fucking hate musicals. Yet...it was really good; I enjoyed it a lot. The musical interludes were bearable, and Timothee Chalamet is pretty excellent, channelling Gene Wilder's take on the character while bringing his own ideas about the character's personality. The rest of the cast is similarly quality, with Joseph obviously standing out with his trademark comedic menace, and even Matt Lucas is impressively restrained. The story's pretty simple and has echoes of classic musicals like Oliver Twist, but it's been a while since we've had one of these and it's as good as any of them; I liked how we're invited to take pleasure from the happiness of even some of the nastier characters.

Something that might annoy Dahl fans is that there's little trace of his trademark cruelty here, but I don't think this would've been improved any by having Olivia Colman hobble her debt slaves (for example). Something I would like to see is a sequel showing how this sweet-natured, beloved young Wonka ends up the bitter, desolate, cruel figure from the Gene Wilder film, but I'm not sure how they'd be able to play that as anything other than a crushing downer. It would be nice to see these characters again, though.

(Olivia Colman, Paterson Joseph, Isy Suttie...did I miss any other Peep Show alumni?)