What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[NotThePars]

18 hours ago, Pato said:

Aquaman. 23rd highest grossing film ever.

The people want to see Jason Momoa shirtless... And I agree!

[DA Baracus]

Whiplash is absolutely immense.

Fun fact, Teller actually was in time earlier in the movie. Fletcher was just saying otherwise to push him, cos he's a massive psycho.

Aye, that ending is absolutely intense. Teller pretty much chucks his chances of making it whilst proving that he is one of the best.

[DA Baracus]

Ralph Breaks The Internet 

7.5/10

This is the sequel to Wreck It Ralph.

Like it's predecessor, this was a huge load of colourful fun. Great visuals, loads of amusing jokes about video games, the internet and just in general, and a couple of touching moments, one of which had me shed a tear.

Cracking soundtrack too.

The highlight was the scene when Venelope meets the princesses. In fact any scene with the princesses was tremendous.

[BFTD]

I really liked Wreck-It Ralph, but the sequel's title put me off seeing it.

I'm well aware of how deeply petty that is, but it's just one of those phrases that annoys the tits off me.

[Ira Gaines]

It's a horrible title for a movie, but it's probably better than the first.

[ilostmyself]

Zack Snyder's Justice League 7/10

Bit of an odd one this. Snyder has always been a style over substance director with nice visuals being preferred to a sensible plot and character development.
I thought Man of Steel was ok, Batman v Superman was poor and I genuinely have no idea why people were so keen to give him another go at this based on his CV...but I enjoyed this and while 4 hours was a slog, I was pretty much entertained throughout.
The film's problems are that they are introducing a ton of characters and MacGuffins (mother boxes, anti life equation) to the franchise without some decent films backing them up so they do most of it from scratch. Plus they use slow motion every 30 seconds and it doesn't add much.
Good stuff -> Cyborg and Steppenwolf have their characters padded out a lot better. It seems to have severely reduced Aquamans odd 'bro' character from Whedons version.
It's simply a much better and cohesive film than Joss Whedons version and Snyder, for the first time, gets the tone of his DC universe right, shoots for the moon but doesn't quite make it.
Nearly gave it a 6.5 though for the boring epilogue which apparently will lead to nothing.

[Ira Gaines]

If it's a big success, WB will definitely reconsider it, and Snyder would definitely go for it.

[jimmy boo]

I Care A Lot
Mrs Boo wanted to watch this last night and I wasn't expecting much but I really enjoyed it. Rosamund Pike nailed it as a totally despicable character and I couldn't wait for her to die a horrible death......8/10.

[tongue_tied_danny]

A Most Wanted Man

Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as a counter terrorism  agent investigating a Chechen immigrant. 

This was a slow burning thriller and it looked good but TBH I'd had a few beers when I watched it and I was keeping an eye on the football and rugby scores so I lost track of the plot. I'll try again at some point sober and with fewer distractions.

Bonus point for having Der Mussolini by DAF in the soundtrack.

Difficult to give a score out of ten, so I won't bother.

 

[Genuine Hibs Fan]

2 hours ago, tongue_tied_danny said:

A Most Wanted Man

Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as a counter terrorism  agent investigating a Chechen immigrant. 

This was a slow burning thriller and it looked good but TBH I'd had a few beers when I watched it and I was keeping an eye on the football and rugby scores so I lost track of the plot. I'll try again at some point sober and with fewer distractions.

Bonus point for having Der Mussolini by DAF in the soundtrack.

Difficult to give a score out of ten, so I won't bother.

 

I genuinely like the concept of reviewing movies you've only half paid attention to 

[BFTD]

13 minutes ago, Genuine Hibs Fan said:

I genuinely like the concept of reviewing movies you've only half paid attention to 

The Shining - Jack Nicholson gets driven mad by his drippy, clingy wife and tries to kill her. Seriously, she's such a PITA that the other guests at their hotel all leave, and she won't even leave the man alone to type a letter. Not sure what happens much other than that as I was drinking heavily, but the ending was a bit of a pisser.

[D'Jaffo]

Taken

Seen it 100 times and it really doesn’t get old. I really didn’t mind the sequel either but the third instalment is best avoided imo.

8/10

[JustOneCornetto]

Singin' In The Rain (1952)

I usually avoid musicals at all costs but having seen a few clips of this I thought I would watch it in full. It really is a fun film with so many great dance sequences. Gene Kelly is such an effortless dancer, so energetic and full of enthusiasm in his role, ably backed up by Debbie Reynold and Donald O'Connor.The iconic scene with Kelly dancing in the rain is the standout that's been imitated so many times. Great film.

9/10

[TheScarf]

Dead Man’s Shoes (2004). 
 

All I can say is - 10 out of 10, would bang.

[Mark Connolly]

2 hours ago, BFTD said:

The Shining - Jack Nicholson gets driven mad by his drippy, clingy wife and tries to kill her. Seriously, she's such a PITA that the other guests at their hotel all leave, and she won't even leave the man alone to type a letter. Not sure what happens much other than that as I was drinking heavily, but the ending was a bit of a pisser.

The Sixth Sense

Kid hangs out with his psychiatrist. Never found out what was wrong.

[NotThePars]

Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) dir. uh, Zack Snyder

A deeply stupid monument to the power of posting. People love to defend comic books movies by calling them modern day adaptations of our civilisational myths but Zack Snyder is the only one who takes this belief seriously in his movie making. Combine that with his obvious affection for Ayn Rand and you end up with a deeply stupid if vaguely interesting movie with some well-worn but effective visual imagery that broadly conveys what he's trying to say. It's much better than Whedon's JL and seems to do his schtick better than he does. Agree with some other posters that he maybe has the benefit of hindsight but this movie does much better by Ray Fisher and makes it less apparent that the whole squad is useless without Supes (even if Snyder has problems with the big man and his moral compass that The Boys does with self-awareness.)

There's so many unintentionally hilarious moments in these movies not least of which is Batman swearing. 

7/10

Batman Begins (2005) dir. Chris Nolan

The original gritty 'realistic' action movie (I thought Casino Royale was before this but it wasn't) that attempts to make Batman work for the post 9/11 ultra serious media landscape. It totally succeeded and shaped movies and media for the next decade which is funny because in many ways this movie is maybe even more camp than the Tim Burton movies. Christian Bale's attempts to sound menacing are genuinely hilarious and parodied to death for the next decade and a half but even Cillian Murphy is hamming it up for half the film and is having a fun time. It was quite interesting to watch this after spending a week immersed in the pool of the post-Nolan DC movie sphere and seeing how two different reactionary but revered directors approach the source material as Nolan seems to have a lot of respect for the agreed understanding of Batman whereas Snyder Does Not. 

Another movie that was more funny when it wasn't attempting to be but still a very well-made movie even if Nolan cannae write non-expositional dialogue to save himself. 

6/10

[velo army]

20 hours ago, JustOneCornetto said:

Singin' In The Rain (1952)

I usually avoid musicals at all costs but having seen a few clips of this I thought I would watch it in full. It really is a fun film with so many great dance sequences. Gene Kelly is such an effortless dancer, so energetic and full of enthusiasm in his role, ably backed up by Debbie Reynold and Donald O'Connor.The iconic scene with Kelly dancing in the rain is the standout that's been imitated so many times. Great film.

9/10

I, on the other hand, love musicals and this might be the best one. Gene Kelly really is a captivating performer. The energy and chemistry between the three leads is palpable too and for a film that has so many big dance scenes none of them feel gratuitous or self indulgent. A truly joyful experience.

[JustOneCornetto]

Misery (1990)

Been so long since I last watched this that I'd forgoten a lot of the detail although I always remember the scene with Kathy Bates, a sledgehammer and James Cann's legs as it makes me wince even thinking about it. Easy to see why Bates won her Oscar and the film holds your attention as you wonder if Caan will ever get out alive.That final fight scene as well is pretty brutal and is really well done.

8.5/10

[NotThePars]

The Trial of the Chicago Seven (2020) dir. Aaron Sorkin

So this is really competently directed. Everything moves at that classic Sorkinesque butter-smooth and rapid pace. The dialogue is witty if often recycled, the characters are funny on occasion and have a lot of superficially smart things to say. The tension was ripe in the air and it could've gone either way right up to the credits. But there was something off. Something was wrong. The whole time I was watching I felt something was not quite right.

It turns out Aaron Sorkin is an insufferable liberal smart arse with a deep and desperate need to understand the dirtbag left and be loved by them.

I knew a little bit about the Trial of the Chicago 7 which turns out is more than Sorkin knew when Spielberg first said he should adapt the trial. He fully acknowledges he'd never heard of it, and after watching this, I'm not fully sure he ever did more than a superficial Wiki of the events. This whole movie is an incredibly obvious attempt by Sorkin to reconcile the fact that there's a significant chunk of the Democratic activist base who hate his politics and he wants them to both respect and like them which is why he shoves his hand up the arse of a coterie of famous 60s radicals who from the briefest glance of the transcripts are far smarter, wittier and more politically coherent than he can ever hope to be. 

It's all really disappointing because the source material is amazing and the actors do a generally great job in this. To contradict my opening take, it just needed anyone but Sorkin doing the directing or if he had to be involved then it needed to be heavily filtered through like Sorkin's writing was for the Fincher directed Social Network. As it stands it's just Aaron Sorkin writing fanfiction where Will Menaker, Amber Frost and Dan Bessner like and respect him.

The things that Sorkin changes to suit his demented political beliefs genuinely irritated me beyond being able to appreciate what was good about this

5/10. 

[BFTD]

Trauma - Chilean horror/thriller metaphor about the lasting effects of the fascist military regime. A group of young women on holiday find themselves under attack from a man who was indoctrinated by one of Pinochet's death squads.

Well, any film that starts with a young man being forced to rape his own mother while she's being executed is probably trying to send a message, and I think the message is "look how badass and nasty our film is". It doesn't come close to plumbing those kind of depths again, but there's a bit of rape and some very impressive practical gore effects, for those who are in to that kind of thing.

Unfortunately, the plot isn't very inspired, although it feels like there's a decent allegorical idea behind it all, but the implementation is poor. There's no real reason given for why the present-day events of the film kick off in the first place, nor why (apparently) the authorities have been aware that a madman has been killing people in a remote location for decades, but chose to do nothing about it. There are also several scenes where multiple people fire on a single stationary target and miss entirely, which just comes off as achingly lazy.

The cast do a decent job with what they're given, and the film's generally pretty well made, but it's let down badly by a lack of thought in the script department. Pity, as the idea that these kinds of horrors don't go away overnight is one worth exploring.