Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate it | {Insert Appropriate Seasonal Greeting Here}

[Ceremony]

Event Horizon (1997): Lawrence Fishburne leads a spaceship to the skies above Neptune to find a ship long thought lost. Sam Neill is on board and explains it travelled through a wormhole and came back, bringing hallucinations, gore and general unpleasantness. Lots of extremely stylish sets, a horrifying premise and Jason Isaacs are let down by studio meddling (it was rushed out because Titanic was delayed, I'm not sure where the audience crossover was), some weird characters and Morpheus playing the whole thing like a robot. If I saw this when I was 12 it would have scared the shit out of me, but I didn't. Still, it's the sort of sci-fi that should be made now.

In the Loop (2009): The Thick of It featuring Tony Soprano. Some characters from the TV show return as is. The rest return as is but with different names. The problem with making a feature length version of The Thick of It is that there are long gaps between the sweary Scottish people, and these are filled with Americans who aren't funny.

Mouse Hunt (1997): Two brothers discover their dad left them a house. The house has a mouse in it which evades all their attempts to kill it. Classic slapstick farce, and a nice throwback to my childhood where I no doubt wore out the tape. Dumb, not as funny as I remembered, but a welcome nostalgia trip.

Ghostbusters (1984): And on the subject of tape. The biggest difference between watching this now, streaming in HD and on tape on whatever television I had 20 years ago is seeing how all the scenes from the end outside of the main set are paintings. Good paintings, mind.

Mean Girls (2004): A homeschooled girl who is clearly a genius despite having the Janitor from Scrubs for a dad goes to school and hits literally every single American high school cliche imaginable. She makes two friends, one of whom is quite clearly a man in his thirties. Some laughs, a performance from Lindsay Lohan who seems very aware that it's a breakthrough for her, and finally some context for so many references I've seen over the years. Felt oddly shallow by the end, but not in a Plastic way.

Casino Royale (2006): James Bond sells Smirnoff, Omega (not Rolex), Sony electronics, Ford and Aston Martin (owned by Ford) while playing a game of poker which as far as I can tell lasts about a week, and features handy running commentary for people who've never stayed up all night watching PokerStars on Channel 4 while hideously depressed and wondering just how hard it could be? I'm no Bond historian, and I've seen Daniel Craig's films much more than anyone else's, but I really can't connect this character to any of the others I've seen, and it definitely feels like a good thing. There are times where it suffers from the problem I had with the Mission: Impossibles - too many big setpieces which don't really seem connected to one another but it somehow comes together well enough.

 

[Chili]

Catch 22-1970

'You can see the major in his office...but only when he's not there.'

Having flown many WWII missions and lost comrades, Captain Yossarian (Alan Arkin) is tired and wants to go home. In order to be grounded, he has to be crazy, and he must be crazy to keep flying. But, if he asks to be grounded...that means he's not crazy any more and has to keep flying. Catch 22! I didn't get too far trying to watch this one years ago, guess was expecting some type of war film. Approaching it as a whole lot of satire with a very interesting cast helps give some perspective. Although some of the portrayals may be somewhat accurate character sketchs of a few eccentric types. Orson Welles has a funny cameo. Capt Yossarian's medal ceremony is a highlight. Still takes a few viewings to appreciate, at least for me.

Night People-1954

[Bela_Lugosi_voice]These are the children of the night![/Bela_Lugosi_voice] Sorry, couldn't resist. Actually, it's a cold war spy film. In Berlin, a soldier is kidnapped from the Western side. Gregory Peck as the Colonel in charge of trying to get the the soldier freed, Buddy Ebsen adding some lighter moments as his sergeant and Broderick Crawford as the soldier's Dad with his powerful connections, determined to impose his influence. Spys, double agents, targets...who can be trusted? Well written thriller by one of the great screen writers, Nunnally Johnson who also directed this one. It was filmed on location in Berlin, wish they had more daytime shots but that wasn't the story.

Shock Corridor-1963

A murder mystery well off the beaten path. A writer gets admitted to a sanatorium to try and uncover the killer. If he had known the dangers he would be facing...Some fine performances as actors play patients. Lovely Contance Towers' dance early in the film is one of the sexiest I've seen on film (up there with Marilyn's 'Diamonds are a girl's best friend' and Michelle Pfieffer's piano dance in 'The Fabulous Baker Boys'). Samuel Fuller must have been pushing the envelope with the some of the issues covered like mental illness, the effects of racism, nymphomania and the controversial treatments of the era. Anyone who liked One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest may find this one interesting. Well done film.

Imagine: John Lennon-1988

A bio documentary mostly narrated by John Lennon. Memories from the highs to the lows with alot of vintage footage of performances, interviews and home movies. Includes the classic confrontation with cartoonist Al Capp during the Montreal 'Bed-in'. From playing for the Queen & friends to Shea Stadium to the concert on the roof. And interviews with those closest to him. Worth watching for fans of the music and the trip down Penny Lane, good retrospective on his life.

The White Sheik-1952 (subtitles)

Newlyweds have come to Rome for their honeymoon. The groom has their schedule of activities all planned over the two days which includes meeting the Pope. But the bride has a plan of her own...to meet the White Sheik! And her adventure has several interesting twists, leaving her bewildered husband to try to explain to his family where she has disappeared to. Interesting how some directors spot faces who aren't necessarily actors and put them in key roles in their films as Fellini did here. Lots of fun.

 

[Osprey]

Heart of Stone (2023) - 4/10

An intelligence operative (Gal Gadot) must race to stop a rogue agent from seizing a powerful artificial intelligence system. Speaking of AI, imagine that you assigned it the task of writing a Mission: Impossible-like script and then gave the movie a fraction of an M:I budget and filled it with only fake or CGIed action and stunts. That gives you a good idea of this movie. It feels like an attempt at a B-movie version of Mission: Impossible with a female lead. Gadot visits exotic locations, parachutes down a mountain, participates in a high-speed car chase through a European city, skydives (against a green screen), rides a motorcycle (against a green screen), runs for half a minute (or at least her stunt double does) and jumps off of a cliff. About the only thing missing is a fight on top of a train. Everything looks far less convincing than in an M:I film, though, no surprise, but some of the visual effects, especially the skydiving and motorcycle scenes, are simply laughably bad. Also, the plot is cliched and dumb, the dialogue is weak and the acting is only passable. I like Gal Gadot, but I started getting the feeling that carrying a film like this might be a bit beyond her talents and charisma. She kind of blends into a film which is already a bit lifeless. One of the few positives is occasional intriguing settings (like a ski chalet that the movie opens at) and cinematography of the Alps, Morocco and Iceland. Another is that there's lots of action throughout. It may not look good, but at least it kept me awake. It really made me appreciate the M:I movies even more, though. Maybe it's not fair to compare it to AAA movies with 3x the budget, but even compared to other Netflix action movies (Extraction 1 & 2, Red Notice, 6 Underground and even The Mother), this came up short. I had been looking forward to this and Gadot being an action star, so this was rather disappointing. It's new on Netflix.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Barbie. I honestly can't believe they pulled this off. A clever, almost relentlessly funny comedy with a genuine brain and a big heart. How do you make a movie about a popular but controversial toy? You tackle every issue with the concept head-on. That there's a layer of real life resonance on top of that is a delicious extra layer of frosting that really pulls this confection all together.

Not everything worked for me. The Mattel execs and Ruth Handler parts serve a role but the movie is at its best when its fully immersed in BarbieWorld and its issues. Ah and BarbieWorld. Colors and visuals and classic-inspired musical numbers like this are why we go to the movies. Stellar work all around.

Ryan Gosling is rightfully getting a slew of praise. For a guy largely associated with serious, heavy drama he seems to absolutely crush every comedy he touches (this, The Nice Guys, Crazy Stupid Love, the SNL Papyrus sketch).

But Margot Robbie has the heavy duty job of carrying this and selling most of the emotional moments while also herself being tremendously funny. The moment where she collapses in depression and she's stiffly bent at the waist and arms (like the doll) and then flops over on her side maintaining that position is physical comedy gold. Is she the best actress working today? I think she has a compelling case.

The timing of this release invited a lot of compare and contrast with Oppenheimer and I do think there's interesting parallels there with creators and creations but the 2023 movie I thought a lot about after this was actually Beau is Afraid, another stagey and stylized journey through existential anxieties...

 

[shadow1]

Friday the 13th (1980) - 7/10

Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) - 7/10

Reviewed these both last year, but not in my neurotically structured style (and I mostly talked about Lou Reed!?).

The original is the Friday the 13th movie I most look forward to rewatching every year. It does have flaws, but mostly makes up for them with great atmosphere, gore, and tension. There's no movie I associate more with the season of Summer than Friday the 13th.

Part 2 is more flawed in my eyes. It's only 87 minutes long, and about 10 minutes of that is footage of the original. The movie seems to speed by, and there isn't much tension outside of the opening scene. It's still solid though, capturing a lot of the first movie's atmosphere while having some memorable kills of its own (though the camera tends to cut away very fast).

I have these movies at the same rating, but think they're at least a half star apart in favor of the original. I almost bumped Part 2 down to a 6, but held off for now. Maybe next year.

 

[OzzyFan]

Heart of Stone (2023) - 4/10

Everything looks far less convincing than in an M:I film, though, no surprise, but some of the visual effects, especially the skydiving and motorcycle scenes, are simply laughably bad. Also, the plot is cliched and dumb, the dialogue is weak and the acting is only passable. I like Gal Gadot, but I started getting the feeling that carrying a film like this might be a bit beyond her talents and charisma.

I think she's a fine middling actress, but that's all she is. After watching Wonder Woman 1984, I thought it was very clear that her charisma is nowhere near the Pine/Pascal level, and her abilities to act are limited, but clearly above the Channing Tatum/Justin TImberlake/Megan Fox/Cara Delevingne levels.

 

[OzzyFan]

Friday the 13th (1980) - 7/10

Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) - 7/10

Reviewed these both last year, but not in my neurotically structured style (and I mostly talked about Lou Reed!?).

The original is the Friday the 13th movie I most look forward to rewatching every year. It does have flaws, but mostly makes up for them with great atmosphere, gore, and tension. There's no movie I associate more with the season of Summer than Friday the 13th.

Part 2 is more flawed in my eyes. It's only 87 minutes long, and about 10 minutes of that is footage of the original. The movie seems to speed by, and there isn't much tension outside of the opening scene. It's still solid though, capturing a lot of the first movie's atmosphere while having some memorable kills of its own (though the camera tends to cut away very fast).

I have these movies at the same rating, but think they're at least a half star apart in favor of the original. I almost bumped Part 2 down to a 6, but held off for now. Maybe next year.

Pranzo is gonna be happy. Can you and Pranzo sell me on the allure of the Friday the 13th series? I've tried on and off tapping into it, but don't get the same joy I do watching the films of the series compared to the other major slasher film franchises. Please give me a better appreciation or way of looking at these films that I might be missing. This is something I've been wanting to ask you 2 specifically for a while but never found the right moment or situation.

 

[Osprey]

Pranzo is gonna be happy. Can you and Pranzo sell me on the allure of the Friday the 13th series? I've tried on and off tapping into it, but don't get the same joy I do watching the films of the series compared to the other major slasher film franchises. Please give me a better appreciation or way of looking at these films that I might be missing. This is something I've been wanting to ask you 2 specifically for a while but never found the right moment or situation.

You didn't ask me (*sniff*), but it may be tough to really appreciate them if you didn't grow up with them. For me, the "allure" comes from the nostalgia. I have fond memories of secretly watching them as a preteen when my parents might not have approved. Also, like many kids in the 80s, I went to summer camps, so the setting is nostalgic. The films and Jason were part of the culture, as well. I can't imagine someone viewing them for the first time today and having near the same reaction to them that we had in the 80s. I've always been fond of the series (up through the 8th entry), not because I think that they're good movies, but because they bring back memories.

 

[shadow1]

Pranzo is gonna be happy. Can you and Pranzo sell me on the allure of the Friday the 13th series? I've tried on and off tapping into it, but don't get the same joy I do watching the films of the series compared to the other major slasher film franchises. Please give me a better appreciation or way of looking at these films that I might be missing. This is something I've been wanting to ask you 2 specifically for a while but never found the right moment or situation.

Personally, I think it's the consistency.

For the most part, the first 7 movies deliver on the promise of a slasher film set in the woods. I like that setting because it feels believable that you'd run into a maniac and be unable to call for help. With the early movies, you get that good atmosphere combined with creative/fun kills.

The Friday the 13th movies don't reach the highs of other horror franchises though, because let's face it: there's less to them. They're trashier, with more gore and nudity to go along with leaner plots and more generic characters.

But that simplicity probably helped it avoid going off the rails with the earlier entries. It eventually happened in a big way, but not as early as other marquee franchises like Halloween or Hellraiser. A lot of fans despite Friday the 13th Part V though, so this is just my subjective take and not necessarily the consensus.

 

[shadow1]

You didn't ask me, but I'm not sure if you can really appreciate them unless you grew up with them. For me, the "allure" is simply the nostalgia. I have fond memories of secretly watching the movies as a preteen when my parents probably would've disapproved. Also, like many kids, I went to summer camps in the 80s, so the setting is very nostalgic. The films were part of the culture, as well. I can't imagine anyone viewing them for the first time now, as an adult, and having anywhere near the reaction to them that we had in the 80s. I've always been fond of the series, not because I think that they're good movies, but because they bring back memories and feelings.

I'm actually one of the oddballs that got into the series when I was a little older.

I had a couple of them on DVD as a teenager, and caught a few of them on TV over the years (Part VIII seemed to always be on). But I wasn't into the series as early as I was the Halloween series, the latter of which I own parts 1-7 on VHS. Part of that is my parents wouldn't allow me to watch the Friday movies until I was a little older (yet somehow Dawn of the Dead, Evil Dead, and Halloween were okay ).

 

[Osprey]

I'm actually one of the oddballs that got into the series when I was a little older.

I had a couple of them on DVD as a teenager, and caught a few of them on TV over the years (Part VIII seemed to always be on). But I wasn't into the series as early as I was the Halloween series, the latter of which I own parts 1-7 on VHS. Part of that is my parents wouldn't allow me to watch the Friday movies until I was a little older (yet somehow Dawn of the Dead, Evil Dead, and Halloween were okay ).

Exactly. The F13 movies had a reputation for being scarier and/or more distasteful than most other popular horror movies, so that's what we kids wanted to watch, naturally. I wasn't a kid that got into trouble, so one of my small acts of rebellion and trying to feel grown up was watching R-rated movies without my parents' knowledge, and the F13 movies were at the top of the list because they gave me the greatest thrill.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

You didn't ask me (*sniff*), but I'm not sure if you can really appreciate them unless you grew up with them. For me, the "allure" is simply the nostalgia. I have fond memories of secretly watching them as a preteen when my parents might not have approved. Also, like many kids in the 80s, I went to summer camps, so the setting is nostalgic. The films and Jason were part of the culture, as well. I can't imagine someone viewing them for the first time today and having near the same reaction to them that we had in the 80s. I've always been fond of the series (up to the 8th), not because I think that they're good movies, but because they bring back memories.

I also have a nostalgic affinity for the series. Had a babysitter when I was young who loved horror movies and I distinctly remember watching Part 2, (as well as Fright Night, When a Stranger Calls, He Knows You're Alone and Sleepaway Camp) while she was on duty. I am sure we watched other movies (including F13 sequels) but those are the ones that really stand out to me.

Cable TV brought the others to me. I remember buying a Fangoria that tallied up all the Friday the 13th kills (in chart form). Timing wise it had to be around Jason Takes Manhattan. That was the first of the series that I convinced my parents to let me rent from the video store.

Then I grew up and got distant from them (though I saw all the subsequent movies save the reboot in the theater). I still tend to favorite Nightmare on Elm Street as a total series and I think Halloween has higher highs (though definitely lower lows) but I've dipping back into the series every now and then over the past year or so and ... damn if they're not more entertaining than I historically have given them credit for.

Consistency is the right word. I used to view that more negatively, but going back through, these are largely pretty lean and fun. They don't aspire to be much more than what they are ... and that's ok.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Don't Bother to Knock (1952) - 7/10

Just wanna say that the way Marilyn Monroe talks is absolutely ridiculous she sounds f***ing childish and dumb. It's intentional and somehow it strangely works but it pisses me off and intrigues me at the same time I dunno how to describe it. Anyways this is a fairly solid drama ultimately about mental illness but it doesn't make its mental illness to obvious or melodramatic till later on unlike films by other directors who lay it on thick. Richard Widmark plays a decent subdued male lead here but everything else is a bit too loose and unconnected at the beginning before getting brought together as was symptomatic of 50s films I found.

Safe (1995) - 7/10

If you are okay with ambiguous endings then you might love this, if you are like me and need some level of resolution or at least a good ending then it feels like watching an unfinished homework project but it is a very good project up to that point. Really weird film genre-wise. It's not a horror film at all but there's something off about it similar to a Haneke film like The Seventh Continent. Todd Haynes is a good director and I've heard his commentary track on this film is worth watching so I might try to catch that before it leaves Criterion channel end of month. Really well-filmed, I just didn't realize that this was supposed to be set in the 80s till much later on. I think it's ultimately a film that filmmakers would love more than a pleb like me.

Night Nurse (1931) - 7/10

Entertaining pre-code Barbara Stanwyck/Joan Blondell talkie with a young Clark Gable. Has a good storyline about ethics and doctors and I think it's held up surprisingly well today. Also features some well-delivered lines like: Take my tip and stay away from interns. They're like cancer... the disease is known but not the cure. Too bad there weren't more hijinks with Stanwyck/Blondell as nurses in the hospital before the film shifted location as that was the best part.

 

[Satans Hockey]

I enjoyed The Last Voyage of the Demeter, it's nothing super original or anything of the sort but it's visually great to look at and has a really good score. Liam Cunningham was good.

If you have one of the theater subscription options it's worth seeing otherwise just wait to watch it at home.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Pranzo is gonna be happy. Can you and Pranzo sell me on the allure of the Friday the 13th series? I've tried on and off tapping into it, but don't get the same joy I do watching the films of the series compared to the other major slasher film franchises. Please give me a better appreciation or way of looking at these films that I might be missing. This is something I've been wanting to ask you 2 specifically for a while but never found the right moment or situation.

I'm well aware I was summoned to this thread, but I sadly don't have much to say to sell F13. I think shadow1 did a great job, and that Kallio backed it up perfectly. They're just slashers, and if you like the genre, you have to appreciate them. Part 4 is one of my favorite slashers (directed by Joseph Zito just after he did The Prowler, another favorite), and I've seen part 3 in 3D with the old cardboard glasses and it might just have been my favorite in-theater movie experience. Up to that point, the franchise is great, and impressively coherent. Had they stopped there, it might have been remembered as the better horror franchise of its time (it's no accident that when Carpenter quit on Halloween H20, they went with Steve Miner) - but well, they didn't, and it became kind of a mess.

 

[OzzyFan]

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Thank you everyone. I think I have may have been looking at them from the wrong context to understand the positives . Of the big slasher vehicles, invincibility aside, it is one of the more realistically grounded ones and fairly more direct slasher entertainment. And as Pranzo/Shadow stated, consistency early on in the franchise seems to be a solid selling point. While I wasn't aged into them when they originally came out from a sentimental standpoint, I wasn't too far aged off their release times. I'm going to give at least 1 film a try sooner than later now. Thanks again.

 

[Osprey]

Cobweb (2023) - 6/10

An 8-year-old boy hears knocking coming from his bedroom wall. I'll leave it at that because that was enough to pique my interest and the less that you know, the better. It's a dark and suspenseful horror film. It's set at Halloween, which adds to the atmosphere. The first two acts are solid and creepy. During the first, a few things felt a little off, but once I put the pieces together, they started to make sense and I became excited about where the film was going. It adopts a few somewhat tired genre tropes, but also subverts a few and has a couple of surprises. Most of the second act, I didn't see coming. Speaking of which, there are some jump scares, but they're telegraphed and the director does a good job of drawing them out and making you wait for them. The camerawork is also creative and the acting is effective. Lizzy Caplan, as the boy's mother, impressed me a little with her versatility because I've seen her in only light-hearted fare. Speaking of which, Seth Rogen is one of the producers, which seems bizarre to me because there is nothing funny or unserious about this film whatsoever. It's so dark and serious that it's almost depressing, a bit like Hereditary. I felt bad for this poor kid. Anyways, so the first 2/3rds are very engaging and creepy. Unfortunately, it somewhat falls apart in the third act, which felt like a different movie, was harder to take seriously and left a lot of unanswered questions. In that sense, it reminded me a little of Barbarian. The last half hour just wasn't nearly as strong as the first hour. Overall, though, I found it to be an effective horror. It's flawed, but with enough strengths to make up for it for me.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Mouse Hunt (1997): Two brothers discover their dad left them a house. The house has a mouse in it which evades all their attempts to kill it. Classic slapstick farce, and a nice throwback to my childhood where I no doubt wore out the tape. Dumb, not as funny as I remembered, but a welcome nostalgia trip.

Really loved this movie as a kid, haven't thought about it for quite some time. My brother and I literally did wear out the tape and had to beg our parents to buy a new copy lol. Gunna have to check it out again.

 

[Unholy Diver]

Frozen - 8/10 - Part of the Disney 100 collection being rereleased into theaters, hadn't seen it, but as a girl dad it was eventually going to happen, some good characters and singing, and the huge swerve towards the end made for a touching story

Frozen II - 7/10 - Took in the sequel a few days later on Disney +, another well done movie with some good musical bits, especially enjoyed Kristoff's 80's style number, story was not quite up to par with the first one, but not bad, another thumbs up from the kid and wife

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Personally, I think it's the consistency.

For the most part, the first 7 movies deliver on the promise of a slasher film set in the woods. I like that setting because it feels believable that you'd run into a maniac and be unable to call for help. With the early movies, you get that good atmosphere combined with creative/fun kills.

The Friday the 13th movies don't reach the highs of other horror franchises though, because let's face it: there's less to them. They're trashier, with more gore and nudity to go along with leaner plots and more generic characters.

But that simplicity probably helped it avoid going off the rails with the earlier entries. It eventually happened in a big way, but not as early as other marquee franchises like Halloween or Hellraiser. A lot of fans despite Friday the 13th Part V though, so this is just my subjective take and not necessarily the consensus.

For me the "Friday" movies stay in their lane (if that makes sense). They know what they are and they deliver the best they can in it. The other franchises tried to get too big, they got big budget, stopped being slashers and got too into the weeds of the "mythology" and just overall got too grandiose.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

For me the "Friday" movies stay in their lane (if that makes sense). They know what they are and they deliver the best they can in it. The other franchises tried to get too big, they got big budget, stopped being slashers and got too into the weeds of the "mythology" and just overall got too grandiose.

Can't agree. If anything, the opposite (apart from the budget) - that's what I meant by "became kind of a mess". The first 4 films are exactly that, slashers that "stay in their lane". I really dislike Part 5, but I understand the fans who liked it, it tries to resurrect the series by going back to its roots, with a whodunit (the original F13 is really kind of a lesser stylish giallo in that sense), trying to redirect the franchise with Tommy as the new killer (that would have been terrible too). Horrible movie IMO, but still "in that lane". Beyond that... Part 6 tiptoes around meta and self-referential ideas, with crap humor. Part 7 brings telekinesis in the mix. Part 8 is, well... stupid. Part 9 is a bad The Hidden parody. Part 10 goes right to space (in the cheapest spaceship ever) - and well I think your argument of trying to be "too grandiose" is obviously lacking oxygen right now!

That being said, I still kind of like 6 and 7, and I'll have fun watching 8 too. I think the campsite hologram in X is actually efficient and funny, even if the film is unwatchable (since they were crapping the bed, might as well have one cool scene).

 

[PK Cronin]

Can't agree. If anything, the opposite (apart from the budget) - that's what I meant by "became kind of a mess". The first 4 films are exactly that, slashers that "stay in their lane". I really dislike Part 5, but I understand the fans who liked it, it tries to resurrect the series by going back to its roots, with a whodunit (the original F13 is really kind of a lesser stylish giallo in that sense), trying to redirect the franchise with Tommy as the new killer (that would have been terrible too). Horrible movie IMO, but still "in that lane". Beyond that... Part 6 tiptoes around meta and self-referential ideas, with crap humor. Part 7 brings telekinesis in the mix. Part 8 is, well... stupid. Part 9 is a bad The Hidden parody. Part 10 goes right to space (in the cheapest spaceship ever) - and well I think your argument of trying to be "too grandiose" is obviously lacking oxygen right now!

That being said, I still kind of like 6 and 7, and I'll have fun watching 8 too. I think the campsite hologram in X is actually efficient and funny, even if the film is unwatchable (since they were crapping the bed, might as well have one cool scene).

I'm thinking that they might mean they don't explore those things as heavily or as often as other films might? While F13 goes off the rails with telekinesis and space, or even the difference between him being a normal sized human to being a zombie creature, it never really tries to explain much of that. It's the same formula every time, an event occurs on screen that brings Jason back and then we're back to hacking and whacking our way to the end of the movie. It doesn't have to make sense, the viewer is just expected to accept that a lightning strike brought him back.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Which one of you crazies rewatched all the Mission: Impossible movies in the last few months and concluded that they're all about Tom smoochin' ladies. Finally caught up with the new one and it's all I could think about. Not much smoochin' in it, but an overwhelming message of "Tom loves, believes and supports women." They added like three new women in this one on top of two carry overs from the previous movies!!!

I definitely enjoyed it (as I do most of the series). As with Fallout, my biggest complaint is that I thought Dead Reckoning is a bit exhausting, though I don't necessarily feel any plot should be cut or action scene should be trimmed ... the pleasure of these movies is largely from how the action sequences start at one place and shift through about 3-4 scenarios before ending some where else. Definitely very maximalist. Really appreciated several call backs to the first movie. (Though the new Hunt backstory is a little out of nowhere).

The last four movies have hit a really nice rhythm. They know what they are and how to do it.

 

[Osprey]

Which one of you crazies rewatched all the Mission: Impossible movies in the last few months and concluded that they're all about Tom smoochin' ladies. Finally caught up with the new one and it's all I could think about. Not much smoochin' in it, but an overwhelming message of "Tom loves, believes and supports women." They added like three new women in this one on top of two carry overs from the previous movies!!!

I didn't understand that criticism, either. Ethan Hunt isn't James Bond. The female partners in each movie are more professional partners than romantic ones, there's no even implied sex in any of them that I can remember and even the light smooch in the latest one is initiated by the female character, not Hunt. Then, you have the whole 4-movie arc revolving around Hunt's wife and his inability to move on from that relationship. He comes across as a character who isn't looking for relationships (which seems like a more believable representation of a spy), but gets into one for the long haul. He's sort of an anti-Bond, which is refreshing.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

I didn't understand that criticism, either. Ethan Hunt isn't James Bond. The female partners in each movie are more professional partners than romantic ones, there's no even implied sex in any of them that I can remember and even the light smooch in the latest one is initiated by the female character, not Hunt. Then, you have the whole 4-movie arc revolving around Hunt's wife and his inability to move on from that relationship. He comes across as a character who isn't looking for relationships (which seems like a more believable representation of a spy), but gets into one for the long haul. He's sort of an anti-Bond, which is refreshing.

They're definitely very chaste. But it's not that different in use in the movie. All the women love him (good or bad) but instead of bedding them like Bond he conveys his respect and support. Not the same act but there is a transaction of sorts.