What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Hedgecutter]

Dune (1984 one), largely because I went to see Dune 2 the other day and had little idea what was happening because I kept falling asleep in the cinema (after coming off night shift).

Having seen the cinematography of the new ones, the old film seems more of a gingerphobic comedy.  Never saw the bit I wanted to though because I, err, fell asleep.

[BallochSonsFan]

22 hours ago, S7C said:

Dune Part 2

Close to perfect, but not quite. Rushed final act and a few characters were absent for too long or had no presence on-screen (Christopher Walken).

Denis Villeneuve is a creative genius though and has turned a complicated book into a piece of epic cinema. Sets a new standard I think.

9.5/10

 

9.5?

Really?

 

Thought they absolutely fucked one of the main characters in the movie. Flat out destroyed her with a needless rewrite. The stuff they changed didn't just make the movie poorer, it actually made adapting Dune Messiah and Children of Dune even harder because of how they treated Chani in the movie.

1 exceptional scene in the movie. And the big final battle set piece should have been a few minutes longer. But the character changes they made to Chani - absolutely kills the film. 

[MSU]

048 Dune: Part Two -- What a difference three years makes. I saw Dune in 2021, rewatched it last week, and while it was a visual spectacle, the glacial pace and wafer-thin characterization made it a bit of a slog. Part Two, though, sees Paul now encamped with the Fremen and it's like Dune finally came to life. Across the board, this is just a much better movie and for the extra 15 minutes in runtime, it didn't feel anything like as long as the first one. The world creation and attention to detail are both amazing but what I loved most was the journey that Paul and Lady Jessica found themselves on was absolutely gripping. Florence Pugh and Austin Butler are welcome additions to an already impressive cast, but Christopher Walken is an unforgivable misstep. Seeing him sitting on the emperor's throne made me laugh out loud because all I could hear was him describing where he hid Timothée Chalamet's father's watch. While I'm complaining, like Part One, I really didn't get an awfully strong sense of heat from the movie, the eye colors seemed to inconsistently flicker to and from blue, and sooner or later we're going to need to get a definitive ending, but these are minor niggles. I haven't read any of the books so I don't have any expectations to dash, so this is comfortably the highlight of 2024 so far. 9/10

049 Perfect Days -- Who would have thought that a two-hour movie about a Japanese toilet attendant could be so enthralling? Really, there's not a huge amount more to the movie than that. Over the course of a couple of weeks, people move in and out of Hirayama's life while he goes through his meticulously observed routine. He hardly speaks to any of them, most of them are strangers or co-workers, and when his niece arrives after running away from home, you could be forgiven for thinking that this will turn his lie upside down, but it doesn't. Or if it does, it's fleeting. And really, that's what I took from Wim Wenders' film; that life is temporary and we should take time to appreciate the things that bring us joy. There's an awful lot of noise in the world and it seldom adds anything positive. Koji Yakusho's portrayal is deceptively simple, right up to his final frames where the pay-off is heartbreaking and beautiful in equal measures. It's up against The Zone of Interest in the International Feature Film category at the Oscars, and it's a long shot, but I hope it wins. It deserves to be seen. 8/10

Edited March 4 by MSU

[Bully Wee Villa]

I can't remember anything that happened in Dune. Would I need to rewatch it before watching Dune 2?

[MSU]

Just now, Bully Wee Villa said:

I can't remember anything that happened in Dune. Would I need to rewatch it before watching Dune 2?

Wouldn't hurt. There's no recap.

[accies1874]

13 hours ago, MSU said:

048 Dune: Part Two -- What a difference three years makes. I saw Dune in 2021, rewatched it last week, and while it was a visual spectacle, the glacial pace and wafer-thin characterization made it a bit of a slog. Part Two, though, sees Paul now encamped with the Fremen and it's like Dune finally came to life. Across the board, this is just a much better movie and for the extra 15 minutes in runtime, it didn't feel anything like as long as the first one. The world creation and attention to detail are both amazing but what I loved most was the journey that Paul and Lady Jessica found themselves on was absolutely gripping. Florence Pugh and Austin Butler are welcome additions to an already impressive cast, but Christopher Walken is an unforgivable misstep. Seeing him sitting on the emperor's throne made me laugh out loud because all I could hear was him describing where he hid Timothée Chalamet's watch several years ago. While I'm complaining, like Part One, I really didn't get an awfully strong sense of heat from the movie, the eye colors seemed to inconsistently flicker to and from blue, and sooner or later we're going to need to get a definitive ending, but these are minor niggles. I haven't read any of the books so I don't have any expectations to dash, so this is comfortably the highlight of 2024 so far. 9/10

049 Perfect Days -- Who would have thought that a two-hour movie about a Japanese toilet attendant could be so enthralling? Really, there's not a huge amount more to the movie than that. Over the course of a couple of weeks, people move in and out of Hirayama's life while he goes through his meticulously observed routine. He hardly speaks to any of them, most of them are strangers or co-workers, and when his niece arrives after running away from home, you could be forgiven for thinking that this will turn his lie upside down, but it doesn't. Or if it does, it's fleeting. And really, that's what I took from Wim Wenders' film; that life is temporary and we should take time to appreciate the things that bring us joy. There's an awful lot of noise in the world and it seldom adds anything positive. Koji Yakusho's portrayal is deceptively simple, right up to his final frames where the pay-off is heartbreaking and beautiful in equal measures. It's up against The Zone of Interest in the International Feature Film category at the Oscars, and it's a long shot, but I hope it wins. It deserves to be seen. 8/10

Wait, so there's still not an ending? Goddammit.

Also, I've sadly missed Perfect Days up to this point, but I should try and give it a shot in the cinema given that I already presumed that Wim Wenders was dead so could do with watching one of his films on the big screen before he does croak it. 

[accies1874]

Three film festival picks and an animated Netflix one. Buckle up... 

13. I Don't Know Who You Are - Cinema (Glasgow Film Festival)

I didn't think much of this, despite it containing some ideas that are always worth exploring. A man gets raped on his way home from a party and is concerned he might have contracted HIV, only he can't afford to pay for his medication. You can imagine the themes present - stigmas, commoditising survival - but my issue was that it presents interesting scenarios but doesn't do a great job of selling them. There's too much telling and not enough showing, the lead is fairly one-note and doesn't authentically sell the emotion of the scenarios, and the editing often couldn't keep up with the closeup-heavy cinematography. 

There's a style present from first-time director M.H. Murray, as he values performances, tries to create an oppressive atmosphere and appreciates silence - they were just a bit lacklustre for me. That said, there's a really nice visual metaphor for art through pain which will stick in my mind. The score is sparsely used, but it very much takes centre stage when it is utilised and reminded me of the brilliant If Beale Street Could Talk score. Another more general and less flattering comparison would be with another great film, Never Really Sometimes Always, in terms of depicting someone's fight against stigmas and the healthcare system, but I Don't Know Who You Are didn't pack the stealthy and naturalistic punches that that film did. 

14. Orion and the Dark - Netflix

I've been rewatching some Charlie Kaufman-scripted films recently, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had a new one on Netflix. I was also confused that it was an animated kids film given his recurring themes of existentialism and isolation, however the opening voice-over settled me down as I realised that I was getting his take on a kids film rather than some weird outlier among his filmography. 

While I appreciated that, I couldn't help but wonder what a kid would make of this. Orion is a typical Charlie Kaufman protagonist - isolated, neurotic, despondent and all-too-aware of those traits and not afraid to tell the audience about them - only he's a kid. It just about passes for a child - his fears are bullies and the dark as opposed to death and a lack of fulfilment - but there are enough overt lines about the human condition that it might not work for a younger audience. I liked that it explored some of these things through the eyes of a child, as: a) it allows for a lighter take on them, and b) it's always interesting to consider what becomes of a certain kind of child and what a certain kind of adult used to be like. It's hard to separate Kaufman from his protagonists considering the consistency found in their characteristics, so I suppose this is a case of him exploring his childhood and, given the nick of Charlie Kaufman's mind, presumably wishing that he confronted his fears just like Orion does. I think there's even a reference to that at one point. 

Another way I could see kids getting turned off by this is the framing device of adult Orion telling the film's story to his daughter Hypatia. That's certainly not a turn-off in theory, but it does mean that the narrative is regularly interrupted by sudden shifts in logic which could make it a bit confusing - I certainly found it confusing at points. That said, this structure allows for some nice moments between Orion and his daughter. 

I haven't really spoken about the story yet. It's about a young boy called Orion who confronts his fear of the dark by meeting Dark itself who takes the form of a magical monster. They go on a journey through 24 hours spreading darkness across the land along with other night-time elements - Insomnia, Quiet, Dreams, Sleep and Unexplained Noises. Due to it being a visualisation of a bedtime story, there are some big set-pieces to go along with the fantastical elements, and the art style is usually pleasant to look at, seemingly blending hand-drawn backgrounds with digital animation, though I could be wrong about that. It's bright and colourful, though the former sort of undermines the importance of darkness in certain scenes. 

All in all, I did quite like it, but unlike Kaufman's other work, I'm not the target audience, so it's hard to say how well it works as a kids movie. They might not be on board with the chloroform joke, but they also might not be distracted by how similar the final act is to The Simpsons episode, 'Scuse Me While I Miss the Sky. 

15. The Teachers' Lounge - Cinema (Glasgow Film Festival)

I patched the Accies game for this and I don't think you can often say that watching a film is a more stressful experience than going to the football... yet here we are. 

This is just brilliant. It's set exclusively in a school that has played host to some recent thefts, but ultimately the film is about everything other than the thefts. At its heart is a wonderful main character, Ms Nowak, who tries her best to just be a good teacher while the fabric of school society burns around her. What makes her and the film so compelling is that she is a good teacher and she does try her best, but even justifiable decisions result in the drama snowballing at a ridiculous pace. Leonie Benesch's performance is top drawer. She needs to carry so much internalisation without letting that boil to the surface, but it's clear from her performance that it's always on the brink of boiling over. She gets moments to let loose or offer biting asides, but she also needs to be an emotional support as well as an authority figure. 

Despite the school having the typical immature behaviour from both teachers and pupils, the main players in the story are all just about as sympathetic as Ms Nowak. Their behaviour is a natural consequence of the situations they find themselves in, sparking horrible moral dilemmas that make you question the concept of right and wrong and delve into the individual personalities that make up both a classroom and the wider school. That's an accurate depiction of the life of a teacher; all of the different balancing acts you need to perform while still teaching maths to children, and I appreciated how much character and thematic stuff was established within the confines of typical classroom stuff. It's excellent as both a character study and a commentary on being a teacher. 

These moral dilemmas are only a part of what makes it so stressful too. The camerawork is almost always handheld and shakily observes the numerous frantic interactions, or it tracks Ms Nowak as she makes her way to a frantic interaction. There are small sounds that play a huge part in the tension by just making you feel ill at ease, there are overlapping and argumentative lines of dialogue, and characters wait in scenes they shouldn't wait in or try to force their way into them. These are sure-fire ways to naturally make your film an uncomfortable experience. 

It manages to explore just about everything you'd want a film of its ilk to explore and it does so in an engaging, stressful and interesting way. If you get the opportunity to see it, don't pass that up. 

16. The Vourdalak - Cinema (Glasgow Film Festival)

A French gothic film about a man who finds himself lost at a mysterious family's house in the middle of the countryside where some weird shit goes down. That weird shit mostly comes from the family patriarch who returns transformed from battle into the titular Vourdalak, essentially a vampire but also not a vampire for reasons I'm not quite sure about. 

He resembles Nosferatu only less... alive, helped by the fact that the Vourdalak is depicted using a puppet rather than makeup. That choice contributes to the overall tone of the film, shot in a really beautiful atmospheric way. Super 16mm, soft focus, really misty exteriors and dark interiors. Like one of my faves from last year, Enys Men, these retro choices and the isolated, creepy setting give off the impression that you're watching the contents of an old film canister discovered in the middle of nowhere. Kacey Mottet Klein's lead performance as the outsider is pitched perfectly within the style of the film. He's often the audience's vehicle to observe the weirdness of the family, but he has an awkward presence that means his reactions can be strangely funny. He got some big laughs from the audience I was in. 

I could've done with it being a bit scarier so that it left more of an impact on me, but, as it is, I'm just left admiring so many aspects of the film. 

[Newbornbairn]

Napoleon

 

Pretty much 2 hours of Napoleon and Josephine sitting on a couch staring into the distance and sighing. 

[S7C]

22 hours ago, BallochSonsFan said:

 

9.5?

Really?

 

Thought they absolutely fucked one of the main characters in the movie. Flat out destroyed her with a needless rewrite. The stuff they changed didn't just make the movie poorer, it actually made adapting Dune Messiah and Children of Dune even harder because of how they treated Chani in the movie.

1 exceptional scene in the movie. And the big final battle set piece should have been a few minutes longer. But the character changes they made to Chani - absolutely kills the film. 

I disagree. I've read the books and thought it added some much-needed balance and made her a bit more interesting. She was pretty 2-dimensional in the books.

I am curious to see how Villeneuve manages to transition to Messiah given the change, but he's committed to it so he evidently has a plan. I don't think it fucked her character at all, or killed the film. 

[MSU]

10 hours ago, accies1874 said:

Wait, so there's still not an ending? Goddammit

I'd have to check with Mrs MSU, but I'm sure my first reaction was "You've got to be fucking kidding me." 

Impressively, Child #2 watched Dune and Dune 2 in the same day.

[J_Stewart]

Dune 2

Very enjoyable, but how do they get off the worms?

[well fan for life]

13 hours ago, J_Stewart said:

Dune 2

Very enjoyable, but how do they get off the worms?

Apparently the bold Dennis knows https://screenrant.com/dune-2-movie-sandworm-riding-fremen-get-off-denis-villeneuve/

Also Dune 2 is a masterpiece. Went to the IMAX for it and it was an incredible experience. Everything from the visuals to the sound design was magic. 

[CraigFowler]

Another rush job as I've been slacking of late...

16 - The Holdovers

The right teacher can change the course of your life. I liked this, and very much at the time, but I've gone a bit colder on it since seeing it at the cinema. It just didn't really stick with me. The performances are great and they've potentially uncovered a gem in Dominic Sessa, while Paul Giamatti is great in anything. Bit surprised by the really strong Oscar buzz for DaVine Joy Randolph, but looking at two of the other four nominations (haven't seen The Color Purple or Nyad) I do now understand why. She was good but it didn't land with me the way I expected. I think that was my biggest disappointment with the film is that it didn't really hit me emotionally, and I'm not sure why.

17 - The Iron Claw

A reversal of the above (I saw these in the cinema on the same day) in that I didn't enjoy The Iron Claw as much in the cinema at the time as I did The Holdovers, but it stuck with me a lot longer. Zac Efron is superb in the main role and you really believe someone that famously handsome, and now absolutely bursting with muscles, would feel uncomfortable in their own skin and struggle to live up to the dreams and demands of their father, again played superbly by Holt McCallany. The downside is that the second half is relentlessly grim. I know that sounds obvious given the story, but it still feels a bit rushed as it goes from one tragedy to another. You don't get much of a sense of their own motivations other than to try and please their dad, which is a shame because they're all played well, especially by Harris Dickinson. The best parts of the movie are when the four brothers interact with each other, so that sense of loss is still there. Can't believe I'm saying this as I rarely ever do, but it could have done with being a bit longer.

18 - Asteroid City

Yeah, I never fully worked out exactly what was going on with a lot of this film either. The black and white stuff? Nah, sorry, don't understand and care even less. The UFO sighting area where everyone converges and meets and you get all the typical (and, as always, delightful) Wes Anderson style of shooting, dialogue and quirky characters? That I did enjoy, and it was the main chunk of the movie. Overall, though, it felt like he was trying too hard to make something a bit different.

19 - Wicked Little Letters

I couldn't figure out if this was colourblind casting (in favour) or the director putting diversity into a period peace where it didn't make much sense historically (less in favour, though still not annoyed about it, as I imagine many twats will be), and this internal debate did take me out of the film at points. But overall it was exactly what I needed after some family-related shit put my mind on a recurring spin: an easy watch, good fun, funny, and superbly cast. I always enjoy Jessie Buckley, especially when she gets to play someone struggling to stay on the rails. Olivia Coleman is superb at playing the 'sweet and smiley on the outside but something lurking below the surface' role, Anjana Vasan shines as the sleuth with her eyes wide open (both figuratively and literally), but the star of the show is Timothy Spall, who is so wonderfully over the top in his detestability. Took me a while to properly warm up to it, but I very much liked it by the end.

20 - Maestro

Trying to fit in every Best Picture nomination before Sunday eve - which, considering my weekend, will have to involve watching Killers of the Flower Moon on what is likely to be a vicious Sunday hangover (so wish me luck with that!) - and it's doubtful I would have bothered to watch this otherwise. But I'm glad I did. There were a good few scenes where I was like "god, this is shot very well" or the director chose an angle which I found interesting. A liked the transition from black and white to colour as the years, presumably, rolled into the age of colour in TV and movies. Compared to Priscilla, I thought they documented the evolution and strains of the core relationship in a more satisfyingly structured way. Both I'm burying the lead here, as the main reason to watch is the performance of the two leads. The enthusiasm which drips out of Bradley Cooper's impression of Leonard Bernstein is infectious, but Carey Mulligan absolutely steals the show as his wife. She can convey such tremendous expression in the slightest of movements, particularly her eyes, and she is truly the heart of the film, which ultimately is a love story, just a very unconventional one.

[coprolite]

Latest mission impossible 

Meh. Train bit towards the end was good i suppose. Too many characters and too complicated a plot considering how completely stupid the premise is. I hadn't realised that IMF stood for Impossible Mission Force before. That was funny. 

[Ewanandmoreagain]

 

The Kid Detective ( channel 4 )

Different !

Gripping in a strange way once the detective story really gets underway !

Quote

I am going to re-watch the latter part to see exactly how he solved the crime (s)

 

 

Edited March 15 by Ewanandmoreagain

[Stellaboz]

Bullet Train on Netflix starring Brad Pitt and a cast of faces I recognize but can't name.

This is brilliant, absolutely superb. They get the right balance of action, comedy and seriousness for my liking. There's enough twists and turns to keep you awake too.

Might be one of my favourite films over the past few years.

Thoroughly recommend. 9/10

[MSU]

My final push to see all the movies nominated for an Oscar ahead of tonight's ceremony peters out at 52 out of 53. Last year I was 33 out of 54 so while I'm quite pleased with this pointless missed achievement, it's a hearty f**k you to Robot Dreams which frustratingly doesn't come out on general release here until after tonight.

050 Napoleon -- The battle scenes were quite satisfyingly bloody and explosive, but for the rest of it, I found myself wishing Armando Iannucci had been directing, a desire that was only intensified once Miles Jupp and Kevin Eldon showed up. 5/10

051 Four Daughters -- Kaouther Ben Hania's documentary is a fascinating look at motherhood, Islam, Tunisia, generational trauma, so many other things, and uses an interesting conceit to do so. Olfa Hamrouni had four daughters. The eldest two were radicalized into ISIS and are now missing. Ben Hania's film uses two actors to stand in for the missing daughters -- and for Olfa when the emotion runs too high -- to have conversations and role-play to figure out why the radicalization happened. For the most part, the method works but there are moments where everyone involved, me included, became confused about what was real, what actually happened, and what wasn't an overwhelming reaction and response to the method itself. There are many saddening moments to the film, perhaps the saddest being that Olfa's attempts to keep all her daughters safe played a role in pushing two of them away. 8/10

052 The Eternal Memory -- The fate that awaits us all if we're unlucky enough to survive so long. Augusto has Alzheimer’s and he and his wife, Pauli, are worried for the day he no longer recognizes her. While it's a documentary of the process towards the inevitable, at its heart it's a love story. I get the sense that the couple is well-known in their native Chile where he was a journalist and TV anchorman and she was an actress and politician, so for Chileans it probably hits differently, but for those who don't know them, the everyday nature of their relationship and his condition maybe hit a bit harder. It's life-affirming and warm, and Pauli's spirit as she tests his memory is incredible, but oh my god, it's so sad. And it only gets sadder. 8/10

053 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 -- I don't remember anything of Vol. 1 and didn't see Vol. 2, so there was little chance that this was going to do much for me, and it didn't. To be honest, I didn't have a clue what was going on for most of its insanely excessive runtime, but it looked impressive, I suppose, it was cute in places, and it did its very best to make me give a f**k about the annoying wee rat thing. Extra half-point for Faith No More in the soundtrack. 4/10

054 Bobi Wine: The People's President -- It's a tale that inspires about as much as it depresses as it chronicles one man's dedication to bringing democracy to his beloved homeland despite insurmountable odds. Seemingly, Bobi Wine said after the film was made that its production was the only thing that kept him alive during the Ugandan elections. For those living in Uganda, I'm not sure what it tells them that they don't already know. For everyone else, it's a timely reminder of the value of democracy and the qualities of a fascist dictatorship that mankind has a horrible habit of failing to recognize until it's much too late. 7/10

055 Io Capitano -- What an incredible, eye-opening subject matter. I wonder if everyone who damns migrants were to see this movie how much better this world might be. Seydou and Moussa are teenagers in Senegal who run off to Europe to make money to send home to their parents and with a dream of becoming famous pop stars. With money saved up, and despite the warnings of everyone they speak to, they employ the services of people traffickers and it's shortly after this moment that their dreams predictably turn to nightmares. The acting chops of everyone involved is pretty impressive, particularly the two young leads, and it's unsettling that a movie so tough and uncompromising is shot so beautifully. There's a magical realism moment in the Sahara that took my breath away. I'm torn about how the movie ends as it makes perfect sense on one hand but is really just the start of the story on the other, but overall I thought it was an enlightening and moving experience and while I don't think it stands much chance of winning the Oscar for Best International Film, I'm glad it's in the conversation. 9/10

056 To Kill a Tiger -- An incredible documentary that follows the aftermath of the gang rape of a 13-year-old girl in rural India where the most prevailing question in the village is which of the rapists the girl should marry to save the honor of the village. The girl’s father says f**k that and pursue’s justice for his daughter. It’s moving, difficult to watch, and hugely frustrating but highlights brilliantly that the only way attitudes can change is through brave advocates and survivors such as those we see here. 10/10

057 The Teacher's Lounge -- I suppose the word "microcosm" is going to turn up in more reviews than mine, but The Teachers' Lounge does serve as a microcosm of society. A spate of thefts from a German school teachers' lounge results in a Turkish student being racially profiled and wrongly accused and then a naive young teacher breaches all kinds of laws by setting up a secret video sting. With all but one scene set inside the school, the movie deals with privacy and authority and morality and it does so like this was a John Le Carre thriller. The score and aspect ratio suggest we're building to something more extreme and potentially explosive, but it's a shoe that never really falls, and I think I like the movie more because of that. 7/10

[Central Belt Caley]

Watched Interstellar last night, absolutely loved it 

Had been wanting to watch it for ages but just never got round to it 

[accies1874]

While I didn't love Oppenheimer as much as other folk, it's still cool seeing Nolan getting his Oscar. It was his Batman films that taught me, at least on the surface, how a director and creative vision can shape a film. In that time of my life (around 2015-2018, ages 16-19), I saw the most films that had the biggest impact on me and Christopher Nolan was a huge part of that. 

[btb]

With females increasingly describing themselves as actors in interviews will the Best Actress category be getting dropped anytime soon?