What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[coprolite]

The Flash (2023)

Fast weird kid has multiverse antics with very (deliberately sometimes) CGI.  Right up there among DC's recent best, which means it's mediocre in the wider world. 

Enjoyably unserious and judicious use of Cameos. Time travel is a shite plot device. 

5/10

[MSU]

061 Road House -- Much like the 1989 version, it's best if you don't take it too seriously, or at all. This one wears its ridiculous heart on its preposterous sleeve a little more obviously and teeters on the brink of outright stupidity quite a bit of the time, but it's a lot of fun. Jake Gyllenhaal is a pleasantly more self-aware version of Patrick Swayze's Dalton and there's a comedic henchman played by Arturo Castro, from The Menu, that I enjoyed an awful lot. Conor McGregor was a peculiar choice but he was sufficiently over the top to just about make up for the fact that he can't act a jot. I don't doubt for a moment that I'll watch it again. 6/10

062 Immaculate -- f**k around with a nun from Michigan and find out, ammarite? I enjoyed this more than I was expecting. As a nunsploitation meets Rosemary's Baby type thing, the first half relies far too much on jump scares to keep us engaged but the craziness of the second half made up for it. Sydney Sweeney is a compelling lead, what it has to say about some body autonomy issues is pretty clear, and the final sequence is absolutely bonkers. I think I'd have preferred it to be a bit scarier, but it more than passed the time and made me feel guilty for munching on my popcorn during some of the more questionable moments. 6/10

063 Imaginary -- Started out a decent Blumhouse PG13 bit of hokum but by around the halfway point, I wanted the bear to kill them all. Especially the neighbor. 3/10

064 Late Night with the Devil -- I'm of an age that not only do I remember BBC's Ghostwatch, I remember watching it live and I remember shitting my pants just a little bit at it. Anyway, Late Night with the Devil is very much from the Ghostwatch school of mockumentary although given we have to go to the cinema to see it, it's far more obvious as it goes about its business. Presented as a 1970s Late Night show hosted by troubled Jack Delroy, it follows the conceit of the late-night genre brilliantly and in a special Halloween episode, Delroy looks to test the boundaries of the supernatural and, of course, it all goes horribly wrong when a possessed little girl is his main guest. The confines of the show and the transitions between on-air and behind the scenes make it feel like a cross between This Time with Alan Partridge and Scanners and there's a lot of fun to be had in the conversations and the conniving that goes on. When the shit hits the fan, the movie delivers with some genuinely creepy moments and then in the close, just when it threatens to veer off the tracks, it brings everything back in a pretty satisfying way. David Dastmalchian is great as Delroy, Rhys Auteri was born to play a talk show sidekick, and Ingrid Torelli as the creepy wee lassie is just perfectly off-kilter all the way through. 1970s production design is spot on and its directed with enthusiasm by Cameron and Colin Cairnes. All in all, between this and Talk to Me, Australian horror is in pretty rude health. 9/10

[The Naitch]

Watched Dune 2 over the weekend - could easily have chopped half an hour off, dragged on for way too long. Good, otherwise.

[54_and_counting]

MI: Dead Reckoning pt1

Usual MI stuff, decent enough storyline given the MI ones are usually this far fetched anyway

Bonus points to it for having Hayley fucking Atwell, man she is fucking glorious 

[Bully Wee Villa]

Barbie - pretty solidly excellent throughout. Ideal fun bank holiday film.

[mathematics]

3 hours ago, The Naitch said:

Watched Dune 2 over the weekend - could easily have chopped half an hour off, dragged on for way too long. Good, otherwise.

I’m of the completely opposite opinion: felt the last 30-60 minutes were far too rushed. I’d even go as far to say that the two films could’ve been three.

[Scorge]

On 24/03/2024 at 21:27, scottsdad said:

Tickets booked for The Naked Gun on 1st April.

Went along to this and Dumb and Dumber for the world of Cine double feature. Hadn't seen either for quite a few years - both are still quite funny and hold up okay. That said, Naked Gun does show its age more of the two, and D&D probably had the more gutteral audience laughter at that screening.

Noticed they are doing an action season for the rest of the month, too. Commando already booked!

[accies1874]

28. Dune: Part Two - Cinema

I'm a bit late to the party, but I didn't really like Part One an awful lot when it came it and that feeling remained when I watched it at home at the weekend, especially as it's a much lesser film on a smaller screen, so I wasn't all that enthusiastic about Part Two though I knew I had to give it a go on IMAX. I was mostly just happy to let the Cinema Experience wash over me. That experience is where most of its strengths lie, with the sound being particularly immersive as you feel every gunshot, explosion and rumble through the dunes. That was then turned on its head with the final fight as I'd become so accustomed to the mega sound design that its absence at the end grabbed my attention. For about two hours, I was enjoying the set-pieces and very little else, which wasn't awful considering there are plenty of them, but I just found it really hard to emotionally invest in... any of it. It's very melodramatic and seems to be all about inspiring awe. There was one touching moment that just had Chalamet and Zendaya doing a synchronised sand-walk which was a nice image that did away with a lot of the portentousness found in these films. 

What I will say, though, is that I did actually begin to get interested in some of its ideas relating to fate and power, though I don't think that Chalamet can carry something so epic. I would be interested in watching it again just to scratch beneath the spectacle a wee bit, which I certainly couldn't have and still can't say about the first one. Like I said, though, it needs to be seen in a cinema (arguably in IMAX), so that desire to rewatch is slightly dampened. 

It also conveys a sense of impending doom well, as it always felt like it was building towards something terrible happening, though that doesn't quite materialise as the ending still isn't satisfying and still sorta feels like an episode from a TV series, but I feel like I got more out of this one than I did the first. I also finally watched the Lynch film to the end for the first time, so I suppose I do have a greater admiration for the Villeneuve ones now as Lynch's is proper pants. 

Edited April 4 by accies1874

[JustOneCornetto]

I must get round to watching Dune 1 & 2. I do like the Lynch original but admit it is flawed but in defence of his version listen to DL in this short interview

 

[Mark Connolly]

On 31/03/2024 at 15:17, JustOneCornetto said:

The wonderful Caroline Munro who you can see currently on Talking Pictures free streaming service TPTVEncore where she does introductions to a collection of B movies, mostly horror and sci-fi, in the section called The Cellar Club

She was also in The Spy Who Loved Me, having turned down the role of Ursa in Superman in favour of being a Bond girl

[accies1874]

3 hours ago, JustOneCornetto said:

I must get round to watching Dune 1 & 2. I do like the Lynch original but admit it is flawed but in defence of his version listen to DL in this short interview

 

He's got more than enough credit in the bank for me to not blame him too much. Also it's fun seeing a creator actually talking so openly about their issues with a film rather than post a tweet that quickly gets deleted. 

[coprolite]

Ghostbusters frozen Empire

Evil spirit wants to end the world and ghostbusters have to stop him.

loads of ghostbusters on the team now. Must be at least a dozen. Thoroughly enjoyable silliness throughout. At least as good as the last one. 

7/10

 

Good Will Hunting 

wayward genius does therapy

Been meaning to watch this since 1997.

Was ok. Quite well done I guess. Robin Williams was surprisingly not very mawkish, but there was a lot of finding oneself and blah. Very American culture with the individualism and self-absorption. Very contrived elitist baddies too. 

5/10

[Swarley]

Moon fall. If you haven't, don't bother. Utter tripe.

[accies1874]

29. The Origin of Evil - Cinema

You'll be reminded of a lot of other films (naming most of them would spoil the film's twists and turns, but its messaging isn't all that original), but the twisting narrative, early ambiguity and interesting characters more than make up for any lack of thematic originality. We first meet Stephane working at a fish packing factory before arranging to meet her estranged (and loaded) father at his lavish French mansion. A lavish mansion and a clash of class, it's not dissimilar to the Eat the Rich films that almost everyone is sick of now, but it very much feels like its own thing when it comes to execution. 

There's a great deal of paranoia when Stephane is at the mansion, as the family she's walked into are suspicious of her, there are peering eyes from the stuffed animals dotted around, her father's granddaughter is a budding photographer who's always taking pictures, and the housemaid hides behind doors to listen in. Boundaries are pretty much non-existent. One of the very first scenes with family has them all sitting eating dinner, but rather than cutting between them having a conversation it instead splits the screen initially into three and then finally five - Stephane always remains in the centre screen though. Visual touches like these are sparse but effective. It can sometimes look quite bland but then hits you with a split screen or a funky zoom. There's also the overdone use of beiges/yellows and blues which I think relates to water and land (the fish packer, the family's boat, plus... other things) and whatever that represents. The split screen gives a sense of oppressiveness, like she is being bombarded by these mad people, but also allows us to focus on Laure Calamy's adaptable performance. 

It's clear early on that she changes as a person depending on the different situations she finds finds herself in, which is initially endearing as you get a sense of her discomfort, but then you begin to wonder about her authenticity when questions start getting asked of her. Her father says at one point that "there's only one truth" and the film plays with that idea throughout, contrasting the truth in the minds of certain characters with the truth in the minds of others, and how their relationship with the truth changes throughout the film. It's really interesting to watch play out. While that sounds like it'll be very ambiguous - and it initially is - the big questions get answers and that made for some really fun reveals. It's one of those that had me smiling throughout just due to the playfulness of the narrative. Even the title, The Origin of Evil, sort of changes meaning as the plot progresses. 

I would recommend seeing it with an audience because of the laughs and gasps, though the audience I saw it with were a bunch of annoying old folk. It also didn't help that Dune 2 was playing next door so, because Dune 2 is the loudest film of all time, there was a lot of thumping during this which I'm still not sure was coming from The Origin of Evil or Dune (though I could hazard a guess). 

[BFTD]

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (BBC iPlayer) - Egon's estranged family, ignorant of his ghostbusting history, travel to his remote farm after he dies and discover all sorts of peculiarities. Are there Twinkies? Will we see Mr Stay Puft? Will bustin' make a new generation feel good? (yes)

This was OK, but ruined for me by the tired nostalgia farming that seems to inhabit any modern addition to an established franchise, which seemed to step into overdrive after The Force Awakens came out. It's absolutely littered with pointless references to the original, existing only to remind the viewer that they're watching a Ghostbusters film (which this doesn't often feel like it is, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but someone clearly thought it was). We get the original score used constantly, despite not fitting the film at all, dialogue is constantly reused, all the villains return...it's tiring.

A more localised problem is that everything feels rushed - we're back to nobody believing in ghosts again, but every new development is taken in stride and the characters rarely seem surprised by anything that occurs, mainly because there'll be something else coming along that needs to be dealt with. Compare to the original where, despite Egon and Ray being true believers, they're shocked when they actually encounter a spirit. The odd thing is that the first act is very slow - again, not a bad thing in itself, but it jars when we end up rushing through characters finding ghosts and using equipment they've just discovered like old pros. There's a bit of plot contrivance too - ghosts suddenly being unable to pass through walls and suchlike - which should have been sorted out at the scripting stage.

There's a school of thought that society has exhausted its ideas and we're now left with pale facsimiles of the same franchises, over and over again. I don't agree, but it's definitely true that the people holding the purse strings in Hollywood are more risk-averse than ever, and that's saying a lot. Thankfully, it's starting to bite, and it's becoming harder to make big money just by slapping a familiar name on it and saying "remember this? Here it is again!" for two hours. This wasn't necessarily a bad idea, and it's OK taken on its own, but it could have been so much better without the lazy, slavish, thoughtless idolatry of the source material by people who didn't really seem to understand why it was popular in the first place.

Edited April 6 by BFTD
There is no 'D' in 'averse', Dave.

[CraigFowler]

21. Good Grief

Was really enjoying this for the first half. It was witty, charming and packed an emotional punch. But all of that ended up wearing off a bit quickly for me by the end of it, which was all a bit predictable. A decent watch but nothing more.

22. Immaculate

Fucking hell! A film that has stayed with me, buried deep into my mind like a malevolent intruder much like the growing baby inside the Sydney Sweeney's main character's uterus. It is shocking, gory and deeply disturbing. The ending give me such a huge reaction that I felt like running from the cinema or covering my eyes to make it all stop. I thought it was great! A horror movie that shows me I'm not yet fully desensitised to horror movies yet.

23. 12 Monkeys

Despite owning the DVD at one point I'd somehow never watched this. Younger Craig was an idiot because this was very good. A clever take on the time-travelling genre, especially the way in which it messes with Bruce Willis' main character's sense of reality and linking that to his interactions with mentally ill patients in the psychiatric hospital. Brad Pitt's nervous energy throughout his scenes is another thoroughly watchable bonus.

24. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

This could have been good. There's a decent enough structure and storyline and more than enough characters and actors that it's easy to spend time with, but that's the problem. There are far too many of them! I counted 11 people in the final scene. That's pretty much every character we're introduced to in the entire film (bar 2, I think) and it 

25. They Cloned Tyrone

This very much reminded me of Sorry To Bother You, which is a better movie, but it was still a good bit of fun all the same. A broody John Boyega excels in the main role which Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Paris are a lot of fun as the supporting leads. A movie about race and racism in America but doesn't take itself too seriously. 

26. Late Night with the Devil

I thought this was great overall. It's a very good idea to contain the horror story within an episode of late night American TV with a single-minded host hell-bent (pun very much intended) on getting a boost in the ratings. There were plenty of creepy moments to keep you going, but it was all building towards a climax and it didn't stick the landing. The ending completely took me out of the story and spoiled the experience to a degree. Though it is still definitely worth a watch.

[MSU]

065 Wicked Little Letters -- I was surprised that this reminded me of Paddington 2 as much as it did, but there’s such a small stakes quaintness and quintessential Britishness to it that maybe it isn’t so surprising after all. Jesse Buckley and Olivia Colman are on fantastic form here as they become embroiled in a case of vulgar poison pen letters set in a small English town in 1920. But it’s Anjana Vasan who really steals the show as WPC Moss. Wide-eyed in more ways than one, she has everything to prove to everyone as an Indian woman police officer and her triumphs are fabulous. There’s humor from the letters and the childishness of it all, but the movie doesn't rely on it for its jokes. The supporting cast are wonderful so the laughs really come from all directions and while the mystery factor is perhaps underplayed, it gives proceedings a fun air that just helps everything along beautifully. Loved it. 10/10

066 Monkey Man -- It's interesting to see an Indian revenge movie like this, but for all the chat from Devl Patel about how it's about nationalism, corruption, the caste system, and false gods, the whole thing felt so flimsy. I did appreciate the fight sequences where Patel with his director's hat on resists the temptation for quick cuts and instead focuses on almost balletic choreography, but it felt incomplete and thin to me. 5/10

067 The First Omen -- The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing Bill Nighy to be in this. On reflection, I preferred Immaculate, and I’m good for religious horror movies for the rest of the decade, thanks. 5/10

[accies1874]

30. Yannick - MUBI

A very good hour-long film set entirely in a theatre (well with one or two exterior shots) and specifically the seating area and stage where three actors are interrupted by one of the attendees, Yannick, who thinks that their play is shite. That anger is exacerbated by the fact that he's taken the day off from his seven-days-a-week job to see the production.

Yannick's a Travis Bickle-type character, clearly unstable and feels empowered to act in a way unfitting of social norms. Raphael Quenard captures that instability really well simply due to the way he laughs and stares down his fellow attendees while doing so. There's a dangerously volatile ego wrapped up in anger and frustration at society and that's mostly conveyed through his performance. Despite being set in the theatre, the film alludes to his past, including his failed relationship, which again adds to that Travis Bickle comparison in terms of being a man trying to vent at the world.

That also plays into the overarching conflict between artist and attendee. Yannick is a whack job, but you can kind of understand why someone so dissatisfied with life would want to find escape in art, so why not take it up with the artists when you think that your time is being wasted? Folk write scathing reviews on Letterboxd and harass actors/directors/writers on social media, so what's the difference between that and interrupting a play that you feel is a waste of your time and money and can actually affect change? Obviously there's a big difference as doing so ruins the experience of other people who could be responding differently to a subjective piece of art - which Yannick doesn't understand - plus there's a different power dynamic here with part-time performers that, again, Yannick can't quite grasp.

Shifting power dynamics are another interesting part of the film, especially when Yannick wields a gun which speaks to the idea of this uncharismatic guy getting people on side just because he's loud and dangerous. Once again, Quenard's performance sells these interactions perfectly. Another example of power dynamics is when the female actor offers sex to her co-performer if he can take down Yannick, as she doesn't have any money so can only offer sex. It's a funny interaction in a film laced with them, but I found it a lot more interesting than I did funny.

[Mark Connolly]

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Huge pile of shite. If the intention was to kill the franchise and stick it back in a containment unit for another 40 years, they've nailed it.

Fair play to Kumail Nanjiani, who yet again manages to be the worst thing about an absolutely terrible movie

[accies1874]

31. Evil Does Not Exist - Cinema

Loved the opening as the camera tracks through a forest while pointing towards the sky with music that's epic, sombre and a tiny bit menacing. That then cuts out and is replaced by a brief moment of silence before the ugly sound of a chainsaw takes over. I reckon that set up the film's ideas brilliantly, but, as the title suggests, things aren't that black and white.

You'd be mistaken for thinking that the film is going for a single-minded take during the scene where the village's residents meet with the out-of-town representatives for those planning to build a glamping site in the forest. The representatives are clearly out of their depth, their answers are rehearsed and empty, and one of them, Takahashi, uses the microphone as a defence mechanism when fielding questions. There's a brilliant shot that frames all of the residents in the meeting up against Takahashi which could both be seen as threatening for him but also alludes to the absurdity of an outside individual being able to disrupt the lives of those embedded in society.

However, it then takes an interesting decision to show that Takahashi and his colleague Mayuzumi aren't just outsiders looking to disrupt the lives of the village people, they're individuals in their own right who have been hung out to dry by the corporate machine (their advisor speaks to them over video call to provide a further sense of detachment). We begin to learn more about them as people after such a frosty introduction which develops their characters while also still critiquing the developers. That extra layer is necessary to avoid it being too preachy.

There's a dreamlike feeling about the whole thing, but the ending is pretty damn abstract. I think it earned an ambiguous ending, but I'm still confused by it - slightly in a literal sense, certainly in a metaphorical sense.

32. Robot Dreams - Cinema

A lot of this reminded me of when I was at T in the Park and had a dream that I was at the campsite having a whale of a time only to wake up in a portaloo miles away from my tent. I felt you, Robot.

It's an animated Spanish film set in Manhattan, but there's no language barrier because there's no dialogue. There are no humans either. The main character is a dog named Dog who we first meet in its apartment eating a shit microwaved macaroni cheese. When it catches a glimpse of its pathetic reflection on the TV screen, it turns the TV on to be met with an advert that promises to cure loneliness - that cure is a robot named Robot. It's a film about loneliness, connection and longing, but, unlike All of Us Strangers, has a more hopeful overtly hopeful outlook due to the determination of Dog and Robot, plus the fact that it's purely platonic adds an interesting and arguably more universal dynamic. 

The film starts quickly and maintains that pace. Ironically, that can at times make it feel like a bit of a drag. I wondered early on how they were going to fill the 100-minute runtime and that feeling never really left me, as while there is an overarching story with a goal - Robot gets stranded at the beach which is closed until the summer, so he and Dog need to reunite - structurally it can feel like a series of short films or episodes of a kids' TV show.

While Robot is stranded at the beach, it dreams of its escape which results in scenes that always start out entertaining but descend into melancholy. The film's set-pieces are inventive as are the use of all of the different animals that make up Manhattan, but the sense of longing and loneliness always punctuated the fun and I'll admit that it almost had me in tears at points. I probably laughed as much as I felt low, though, and the high point was a wonderfully absurd scene involving a laughing ice cream cone and a snowman bowling with his own head. That reminded me quite a bit of David Lynch's funnier absurd stuff and there are quite a few references to other films (and products, weirdly) which can feel a bit indulgent, though I do think there might be something else going on there in terms of escapism. 

Why I think Robot Dreams works as a dialogue-free film where last year's No One Will Save You faltered a wee bit was because it felt a lot less contrived in a world filled with animals, robots and laughing ice cream cones. It never felt like a gimmick, and the film found inventive ways to get away from dialogue by taking different perspectives which served their own purpose. 

I was really interested to see its resolution as it set up the kind of conflict that could be difficult to resolve in a satisfactory way, however I don't think that it quite stuck the landing despite the third act having me hooked up until that point. I felt a wee bit hollow after such a strong buildup to the conclusion. That said, I really loved how poignant and inventive I found it, so I'm more than happy to overlook its shortcomings. Messy but effective. 

Finally, with it being set in Manhattan there are animated takes on landmarks as you'd expect. What I didn't expect to see was the Twin Towers, and I certainly didn't expect them to have a strategically placed cloud which had a striking resemblance to plumes of smoke emanating from one of the towers. Even stranger was the fact that the song September was playing at this point (as it does in many scenes) and I'm pretty sure that I could hear sirens in the background. Not quite sure what this was all about, but I hope it's not a Love, Actually situation in that it was trying to make a point about love and connection by using 9/11.