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

[Rodgerwilco]

No I was familiar with it. Just picked my battles.

So bad it's good is a very difficult line to walk. When a movie tries to be great and ends up good, you still have a good movie. When it tries to be bad (in the so bad it's good sense) and misses, it ends up being unwatchable.

I don't think it's something you can set out to make - it just has to happen as part of an earnest effort that explodes in so many different and unique ways. I daresay it's harder to make a so bad it's good movie than a 5/10 meh movie.

Have you seen "The Room" or any Neil Breen movies? these are the only 'so bad it's good' movies that I've enjoyed. Like you said, they come from earnest attempts to make great films, rather than the Sharknado shtick of trying to make good-bad films.

 

[The Macho King]

Have you seen "The Room" or any Neil Breen movies? these are the only 'so bad it's good' movies that I've enjoyed. Like you said, they come from earnest attempts to make great films, rather than the Sharknado shtick of trying to make good-bad films.

Haven't watched Breen, but very familiar with The Room.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Haven't watched Breen, but very familiar with The Room.

Neil Breen is somehow even more delusional than Tommy Wiseau and it makes for some excellent cinema lol.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

No I was familiar with it. Just picked my battles.

So bad it's good is a very difficult line to walk. When a movie tries to be great and ends up good, you still have a good movie. When it tries to be bad (in the so bad it's good sense) and misses, it ends up being unwatchable.

I don't think it's something you can set out to make - it just has to happen as part of an earnest effort that explodes in so many different and unique ways. I daresay it's harder to make a so bad it's good movie than a 5/10 meh movie.

Funny enough on this topic I watched Samurai Cop this weekend, which I would say more than meets the qualifications. Everyone is giving it their all ... but their all just isn't very good. It's not even very mediocre. Stiff acting is a given but one of my favorite hallmarks of a bad movie are scenes that just hold on for a beat or two too long. There's a ton of that here. It's like you hear about David Fincher's maniacal attention to detail and this is probably the exact opposite.

Needless to say, it's a blast.

Oh and I don't know if anyone involved in the making of this has any clue what a samurai actually is.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Funny enough on this topic I watched Samurai Cop this weekend, which I would say more than meets the qualifications. Everyone is giving it their all ... but their all just isn't very good. It's not even very mediocre. Stiff acting is a given but one of my favorite hallmarks of a bad movie are scenes that just hold on for a beat or two too long. There's a ton of that here. It's like you hear about David Fincher's maniacal attention to detail and this is probably the exact opposite.

Needless to say, it's a blast.

Oh and I don't know if anyone involved in the making of this has any clue what a samurai actually is.

I've seen a lot of clips popping up in YouTube shorts, but haven't actually watched it. Maybe this is a sign I should get to it.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Savages. Watched one of Oliver Stone's first movies recently. So I jumped to one of his last movies. I'm ultimately positive on it but it's an interesting mixed-bag on a couple of fronts. Part of why I like the movie is the source material. I love Don Winslow's novels so that's about half the battle here. The odd thing is that one of the movie's failings is its dialogue (especially a very bad running voice over) and almost all of that is coming right from Winslow. It's a classic case of things reading fine on the page, but sounding kinda dumb or stilted coming out of character's mouths. Plays on the page. But not on the screen.

Though it also might not help that the three young people in this cast (Blake Lively, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Taylor Kitsch) are at best mediocre and at worst bad. Johnson and Kitsch do have a swagger and a presence, but man every time they talk, it's pretty rough. Lively's even worse. It's a charisma void for a character that practically needs to be all charisma.

Now on the flipside there's a trio of grown-ass adults in this (Salma Hayek, Benicio Del Toro and John Travolta) who manage to save the movie (if only just so). Hayek is genuinely impressive as an outward monster who tries to mask a softness that could be her downfall. Del Toro just does skeevy, twitchy Del Toro shit, but he's good at it. Travolta is funny and I'm pretty sure this is the last time he tried.

I haven't seen such a clear divide in this between the adults and kids since The Stand adaptation from a few years ago where the adults were pretty good and I wanted to go into my TV and murder every actor under 30 because of how bad they were.

Savages double ending doesn't work for me either. It's an ok idea but it doesn't sell you on why one is preferable to the other.

I've seen a lot of clips popping up in YouTube shorts, but haven't actually watched it. Maybe this is a sign I should get to it.

If you enjoy The Room and Neil Breen then I've never been more confident in a recomendation than saying you'll enjoy Samurai Cop.

 

[The Macho King]

Blake Lively is someone who I just don't get. She's hot as shit, yeah, but I have never seen her in a role be anything beyond passable. And I watch trash TV so yeah I watched Gossip Girl and she is the worst part of that show. Every other young actor pops in some way but she just coasts by being a 10.

I totally forgot Savages was an Oliver Stone movie. What a weird direction for him. Honestly that's weirder to me than the glowing documentaries of various foreign dictators.

 

[shakes the clown]

I'm way behind on movies and planning to not watch any more of them till after basketball and hockey are done in June. Last movie I watched I think was The Marvels. I give it a solid 2/10. And that might be generous. Don't even remember it, but I do remember hating it. Story was horrible and had no idea what was going on for a good part of it.

Just a terrible movie and such a shame that Marvel has fallen off a cliff. I'm a huge superhero fan.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Blake Lively is someone who I just don't get. She's hot as shit, yeah, but I have never seen her in a role be anything beyond passable. And I watch trash TV so yeah I watched Gossip Girl and she is the worst part of that show. Every other young actor pops in some way but she just coasts by being a 10.

I totally forgot Savages was an Oliver Stone movie. What a weird direction for him. Honestly that's weirder to me than the glowing documentaries of various foreign dictators.

It's got a little of Stone's style tics with some of the editing and blasts of bleached out film stock, but otherwise I'm not sure you'd know it's him. It doesn't even get preachy about the war on drugs (which you'd think he'd do).

But as a gnarly little potboiler, it's solid.

 

[kingsfan28]

The Abyss 4k

One of my favorites and the 4k really makes it even better. Michael Behn mustache never looked better. I will say that
I do miss some of the grainyness that makes many older films still feel like were shot on it. Some DNR issues during close ups and at times the faces did look a little weird, but overall it still remains a great film in the new format. It's pretty obvious he intended all the new versions for the streaming and digital age, especially those who can't understand why a film looks grainy and soft on their 2000 dollar OLED.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

The Abyss 4k

One of my favorites and the 4k really makes it even better. Michael Behn mustache never looked better. I will say that
I do miss some of the grainyness that makes many older films still feel like were shot on it. Some DNR issues during close ups and at times the faces did look a little weird, but overall it still remains a great film in the new format. It's pretty obvious he intended all the new versions for the streaming and digital age, especially those who can't understand why a film looks grainy and soft on their 2000 dollar OLED.

"Creative not final and subject to change."
Sounds like James Cameron!

 

[NyQuil]

Blake Lively is someone who I just don't get. She's hot as shit, yeah, but I have never seen her in a role be anything beyond passable. And I watch trash TV so yeah I watched Gossip Girl and she is the worst part of that show. Every other young actor pops in some way but she just coasts by being a 10.

I liked her in The Town with Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner.

 

[The Macho King]

I liked her in The Town with Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner.

You know that's a blind spot of mine. Hear it's pretty good but that cast is basically a grab bag of "eh I'll pass" for me.

 

[NyQuil]

You know that's a blind spot of mine. Hear it's pretty good but that cast is basically a grab bag of "eh I'll pass" for me.

It’s a surprisingly decent if by the numbers crime movie.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Menus Plaisirs - Les Toisgros. I've only seen a handful of Frederick Wiseman's documentaries. Long and let's say very deliberately paced, they're not for everyone but every one I've watched I've found to be transfixing and almost magical. Wiseman's style is so basic, it seems easy. You'd probably watch and think, "I can do this." Basic camera setups. No movement. No talking heads. No chyrons to explain who is who and what is happening. No hand holding. He drops you into a world and you go along with it. Here, it's a historic, family-owned, three-Michelin star French restaurant. In other movies like Ex Libris it's the New York Public Library system. At Berkley is the University of California, etc. (The 93 year old puts out a movie every year or two).

Where I think Wiseman is magical and why I think his movies are far more complex and difficult to make than they seem on the surface is his ability to subtly coax out story and themes. What feels like random slice-of-life scene-to-scene builds to something bigger. In Ex Libris, you eventually realize you're watching a historic institution navigate a transition to a modern age. Menus Plaisirs is largely a family story about a chef father and his two sons. His documentaries are almost negatives of narrative movies. You can squint and see the fictionalized versions with its big drama and characters fighting time/systems/etc. ... but Wiseman's docs are all the small things. All details. Moments, side conversations. It's the stuff movies just don't have the patience (or in fairness, time) to do.

 

[Bahama Mama]

Really enjoyed this movie, Ralph Fiennes was terrific. Have no way of knowing but feel confident it was made by a bunch of stoners.

 

[Bahama Mama]

Blake Lively is someone who I just don't get. She's hot as shit, yeah, but I have never seen her in a role be anything beyond passable. And I watch trash TV so yeah I watched Gossip Girl and she is the worst part of that show. Every other young actor pops in some way but she just coasts by being a 10.

I totally forgot Savages was an Oliver Stone movie. What a weird direction for him. Honestly that's weirder to me than the glowing documentaries of various foreign dictators.

Have you seen this movie? we enjoyed it.

 

[The Macho King]

Have you seen this movie? we enjoyed it.

I have not. It's not a director I care about and her as the star is just going to make it as a movie I don't want to watch.

 

[Bahama Mama]

I have not. It's not a director I care about and her as the star is just going to make it as a movie I don't want to watch.

Interesting criteria,set in your ways then,sounds limiting but to each their own.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

I have not. It's not a director I care about and her as the star is just going to make it as a movie I don't want to watch.

So a self fulfilling prophecy

 

[The Macho King]

So a self fulfilling prophecy

So life has this weird limitation of being finite, therefore I have to prioritize how I spend my time. I'm willing to try new things with positive buzz (Age of Adeline gets at most tepid recommendations, but that's beside the point). As a shorthand - if Fincher, Bong, Wong Kar-Wai, Coens, etc. come out with a new movie? Yeah I'm going to make an effort to see that. If it stars actors I'm really fond of? Yeah I'll prioritize that as well.

An actor I dislike and a director I haven't heard of? Low priority. Might watch it on an airplane if the selection is poor.

 

[kingsfan28]

You know that's a blind spot of mine. Hear it's pretty good but that cast is basically a grab bag of "eh I'll pass" for me.

It's quiet good, solid acting , and probably the best heist movie in the last 15 years. Don't let Lively turn you away. She has a supporting, supporting, role. Most of the cops are onscreen more than her.

 

[kihei]

The Beekeeper (2024) Directed by David Ayer 3A

Killing time between tennis matches on the weekend, I watched The Beekeeper, a goofily conceived, visually competent thriller about a former member of an elite, super covert CIA outfit called The Beekeepers. Jason Statham plays Adam Clay who takes revenge on a bunch of ultra-rich scammers with political connections whose corporation is responsible for the suicide of a nice black woman who they ripped off, the only person to befriend the now retired Beekeeper. Does anyone doubt what happens next? The Beekeeper is the kind of movie that requires only part of you to be there when watching it. About 70% of your consciousness can be excused to ponder other things. The Beekeeper held my attention because something interesting would emerge from the predictability for just a brief moment before slinking back into the primal slime, such as Jeremy Irons opening scene, where he blissfully dismisses his psychopath's stepsons attempts to involve him in his cash cow scam efforts. Oh, boy, I thought, Irons will be fun. Nope, the moment passes and future Irons appearances are just stock stuff. But I was still sitting there watching this product, wasn't I? I hadn't moved or turned it off. In retrospect I felt a little irritated at myself. The Beekeeper plays on the fact that I have already sold out, already been sufficiently dumbed down by similar stupid movies that I don't even try to resist anymore.

How have my standards stooped so low that I flip this thing on even as a time killer? Statham has settled once again for a grumpy pit bull persona that is as charmless as it is boring. He's hardly the only problem, though. The fact that a beehive analogy is made so often by so many characters in the movie just seemed like the AI got stuck on a single note and repeated it too frequently. The twist that comes nearing the conclusion is a howler, one so bad that briefly the movie seems actually more engaging because of it. But then the lights dim again, as from there on out, things just get dumber and dumber. As in so many of these movies, our ostensible hero is just another superhero who can never really be threatened, defeated or killed because presumbably a dumb audience fears uncertainty, even a tiny drop, more than anything else in their movies. The Beekeeper doesn't dumb you down as much as it assumes that you have already been dumb-downed and are an easy target for more twaddle.

 

[PK Cronin]

So my wife made me watch Leprechaun last night.

I will be filing for divorce shortly.

What a terrible movie. The villain alternates between always fleeing (so as to not be caught, you see), to chasing, and there seems to be no internal logic between why he can be chased away and chasing. Warwick Davis is, no offense, not a threatening figure. But it also doesn't have enough jokes to make it "so bad it's good". Jennifer Aniston doesn't pop, per se, but she at least reads her lines like there isn't someone off screen with a gun to her dog's head. It's just so bad. So so so bad.

1/10

Wait until you watch the one where they go to space!

 

[PK Cronin]

It’s a surprisingly decent if by the numbers crime movie.

I was just making a similar comment the other day. You know exactly what you're going to get from that film but it's done well enough that it's still a solid flick. It doesn't try to be anything more than what it is.