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

[CDJ]

Ezra by Tony Goldwyn

dude hasn’t directed a ton of films but it seems like comedy drama is his niche- I thought this was a sweet movie. Made me cry a little bit, if you have a relationship with your father it will hit you in the feels. The movie stars Bobby Cannavale, Rose Byrne, and Robert DeNiro. Good performances all around, really liked DeNiro in this one. General premise is a divorced comedian fighting for his autistic child. I tend to consider it more drama than comedy but it has funny moments. The film was authentic as it was written by somebody with an autistic son and the role was played by an autistic actor (William Fitzgerald). Kid did great. The associate producer is also autistic. Very good job in portraying autism especially when compared to a piece of shit like The Predator- Hollywood is getting better at it. Movie won’t be released until the 31st but I would recommend. Kinda like Rainman meets Pursuit of Happiness

6.6/10

its funny I checked the early reviews after and IMDB has it as a 6.6 and RT has it at 77% with a limited number of reviews (I think the RT # will fall a little). If there was gambling on movies I’d be an expert handicapper

 

[Buck Naked]

Decided to fire up an old standard - A Few Good Men. Talk about a movie they don't make anymore...

This movie brings up a few things for me. I want to go grab Rob Reiner and figure out what the f*** happened to him. I don't think this is a perfectly directed movie (note below), but it's really f***ing competently done and it's near the end of his absolutely legendary run.

I MISS MOVIE STARS! This is the perfect example of a movie you can't make today because movie stars don't exist. When you hire Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson and ask them to just be Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson for 2 hours and 10 minutes and you have a movie. The statement that offends so many MCU nerds is an absolute truth. Outside of literally still Tom Cruise and maybe Leo a little bit (and honestly maybe Zendaya but to a much lesser degree), I can't think of a single actor that can sell a movie by force of personality anymore. Ryan Gossling (who I like for the record) can't do that. Chris Pratt can't do that. A decade plus of such heavy studio control has left us with a terrible landscape for movie stars. IP is the new movie star and it f***ing sucks. Anyway moving on.

Jack Nicholson may be the most engaging screen presence in the history of film. What an insane career. He just dominates every scene he's in. Obviously this is one of his iconic performances, and it's earned. So good. Cruise is still in his transition era, but this is also a solid performance for him. There was that period where he tried to work with every auteur he could in the 90s and while I don't think he's the most gifted actor, he is certainly very good and has such natural charisma. Kevin Pollack was also in a nice little run of this era with this and The Usual Suspects in a few years with good supporting performances. Demi Moore was very solid here as well and it's easy to forget how good of a run she had for awhile - don't think she ever really made the shift to great actress but she has a fairly solid filmography in the early 90s.

So one weird note. The structure of this film is weird. You open with the code red. Then you get to the whole internal politics of Cruise getting assigned the case. And then... you get a flashback of the brass in Gitmo discussing Santiago? And then you go right back to the linear storytelling - this is the only nonlinear event, it isn't noted as a flashback, and then you just pick it up and keep going. There's a lot of exposition here and all of that, but it just feels like a lazy edit? Either do a reshoot to get that information out elsewhere or find a way to restructure the flashback (during the testimony later maybe?) Idk it's kind of jarring.

That being said? Still a perfect movie. 10/10.

It's weird when you agree with literally every letter used in a post this long, but wow, you truly spoke my mind.

One of my top favorite movies of all time, without a doubt.

 

[The Great Mighty Poo]

Rewatched Shin Kamen Rider, holy balls is it still great, think classic Kamen Rider but gory and if was directed by 80s Japanese David Cronenberg.

 

[The Macho King]

Last night I fired up a movie I haven't seen since I was a teenager: They Live

John f***ing Carpenter just did not miss in the 80s. I know a lot of the criticism of this movie centers around how entirely unsubtle it is. You know what I say? Good - f*** subtlety when we're talking about social issues. This movie is a f***ing mirror and it's so good. Piper brings a surprising amount of pathos in his performance. Keith David can do no wrong. The alley fight.... oh god the alley fight.

My only note is the pacing around the end isn't ideal, but at the same time... the message has been delivered and received, and we don't really need to waste much more time do we? I'd almost like to see this movie updated to just kind of improve the action a bit - probably not in the quasi-realistic way that the John Wick films do but more in the theatrical George Miller style. Pump everything up to 11. The 90 minutes fly by.

Pithy letterboxd review: I'm here to chew bubblegum and dismantle capitalism. And I'm all out of bubblegum.

9/10

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

Napoleon

The best parts of this movie feel like they were shot as a satire, with the core joke being Phoenix's silly hat gets 1/64th bigger every time they cut back to him. And then they edited the joke out.

 

[kihei]

The Breaking Ice (2024) Directed by Anthony Chen 7A

Set in the coldest part of China near the North Korean border, The Breaking Ice is a graceful menage a trois involving a trio of young 20-somethings. Feng is a economist from Shanghai visiting the region to attend a wedding. Obviously avoiding therapy sessions back home, he becomes attracted to Nana, a tour guide with whom he begins a friendship. Nana's best bud is Xiao whose love for her is not exactly reciprocated though they remain close anyway. Having missed his flight and lost his cell phone (and with it his ability to get money), Feng is befriended by Nana and Xiao, and they spend several days together exploring the region. The Breaking Ice echoes at least a couple of French New Wave works, Godard's Band of Outsiders and, more closely, Truffaut's masterful Jules and Jim. Feng is more enigmatic by far than Jim; Nana has more than a little of the headstrong Catherine in her; and Xiao shows hints of Jules in his good-natured way of handling rejection and unwanted competition. All three protagonists are likeable; all three feel both geographically and emotionally displaced; and all three suffer from various degrees of melancholy. Director Anthony Chen has a very delicate touch developing their characters and the various themes of the movie including feelings of meaninglessness and a sense of longing that can transform into something dangerously troubling. Chen's symbolism is a little too on-the-nose at times, but watching these three people wander around the snowy landscape trying to find connection and some sense of hope is emotionally very compelling.

subtitles


Best of '24

1) The Breaking Ice, Chen, China
2) Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Jude, Romania

 

[The Great Mighty Poo]

Last night I fired up a movie I haven't seen since I was a teenager: They Live

John f***ing Carpenter just did not miss in the 80s. I know a lot of the criticism of this movie centers around how entirely unsubtle it is. You know what I say? Good - f*** subtlety when we're talking about social issues. This movie is a f***ing mirror and it's so good. Piper brings a surprising amount of pathos in his performance. Keith David can do no wrong. The alley fight.... oh god the alley fight.

My only note is the pacing around the end isn't ideal, but at the same time... the message has been delivered and received, and we don't really need to waste much more time do we? I'd almost like to see this movie updated to just kind of improve the action a bit - probably not in the quasi-realistic way that the John Wick films do but more in the theatrical George Miller style. Pump everything up to 11. The 90 minutes fly by.

Pithy letterboxd review: I'm here to chew bubblegum and dismantle capitalism. And I'm all out of bubblegum.

9/10

The fight scene with Piper and Keith David is so frigging good.

 

[CDJ]

Tarot (2024)

A pile of dog shit but not as stinky of a pile of dog shit as The Strangers Chapter One. The dorky Hawaiian kid from the Tom Holland Spider-Man’s was the best part, he was miles ahead of his peers. It is watchable, it’s just dumb and specifically tailored to teenage tarot card readers and astrologists

3.0/10

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Furiosa. There is a noticeable increase in obvious CGI here relative to Fury Road. One of the great things about the preceding movie is how well it masks its CGI. The people and vehicles here, at times, move in that unreal, too feather-light, cartoony way. Now I don't want anyone to DIE making a movie and I know George Miller is pushing 80, but this doesn't have quite the metal-on-metal, high-flying, holy-shit-how-the-hell-did-they-do-that factor that Fury Road does.

But honestly? That's my only real complaint. Miller gives you what you want. Sequences that feel lesser for him are still better than what most directors execute on their best days. There is a continued legacy of rad character and vehicle design (including a killer set of truck nutz!) that will continue to be ripped off until the end of time. But he and his team are still the unquestioned best. Wonderful color contrasts sure to pop on your 4k TV.

Ana Taylor Joy gives good gravitas. Chris Hemsworth gives a boisterous performance as a villain who is undeniably evil, but also a bit of a bumbling goober. It's a clever tone since -- given this is a prequel -- we know he can't be as powerful as some of the monsters we already know exist. The only real mistake is Miller burned the name Doof Warrior on a character in the previous movie because that describes Hemsworth to a T.

Furiosa in many ways is George Miller and Co. just playing the hits. But Miller is on the short list of folks who I'm more than happy to watch their greatest hits any given day.

 

[Nakatomi]

Donkey Skin (Peau d'âne)

A very bizarre film. Catherine Deneuve is a beautiful princess. Her mother dies but not before making the King promise to only remarry when he finds a woman more lovely than she. Turns out their daughter is the only woman in the land who fits the criteria.

There is a magical donkey that excretes diamonds and other assorted gems. Ummm. Also a magical fairy that is trying to help the princess avoid marrying her dad, but may have ulterior motives.

All in all, an odd film. Some fun visuals, though. It is also based on a rather old fairytale: Donkeyskin - Wikipedia

 

[CDJ]

The Fall Guy

Perhaps I liked it so much because I saw some real pieces of shit this past week but I thought it was an incredibly fun movie. A quality action-comedy. A top tier high school date movie.

7.7/10

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

The Straight Story. David Lynch's weidest movie ... which is to say it is his most normal movie. But when he looks at America here he doesn't see fear and perversion and evil, he finds kindness.

The Insider. A tense thriller that generates all its momentum from dudes in suits yelling (which I am a sucker for). Good warts-and-all journalism story and corporate malfeasance story. Great angry performances up and down the calls sheet. Though I have a wall up for people playing real people, Christopher Plummer's Mike Wallace really sticks with me (though that may be because he gets the best speech, though Bruce McGill's "WIPE THAT SMIRK OFF YOUR FACE" Is close). Stylish and impeccably tailored, as Michael Mann films tend to be.

Gettysburg. A throwback to the end of the TV miniseries glory days from the 70s to the mid-90s. I have a real nostalgic soft spot for a lot of the big productions from that time. I like a long opening credits with a cast that just goes on and on but while TV gave you space for more speaking parts and many, many monologues for your most recognizable faces, it was also always a confined space. Literally boxy. No wide-screen then. This eventually got a theatrical release but the handcuffs of TV production are hard to shake. It actually plays to the advantage in the woods-bound atrack on Little Round Top but you feel the true lack of scope in the open field climax of Pickett's Charge. This feels EPIC, but they could only capture so much so it never actually delivers on that. Still there's something old fashioned about the triumphant music and dignified performances that I find comforting. My one fear was how badly they were going to soft pedal the South's beliefs and while there is some of that and the sheer honorability given to the soldiers definitely plays into the old Lost Cause narrative there are at least two points where Southern leaders push back on the wrongness of their pro-slavery motivation ... it's not much but it is more than I expected. The traitors and racists are given more dignity than they deserve, but this is ultimately more about battle logistics than politics. Martin Sheen is kinda bad, but most of the other recognizable faces here deliver when the spotlight moves to them.

 

[Bahama Mama]

Saw The Doors in a cinema when it first came out with my girlfriend and don't remember either of us being enamored with the film. It was long and went in a bizarre direction at one point. This was the first re-watch for me since then and this time it was all about music I haven't listened to in eons. Val Kilmer apparently had his own Doors cover band at one point and thought he was really good here. The guy can sing.

This film was a lot about Oliver Stone's view, who had his own memories from his time in Vietnam. Biopics probably all have some 'dramatic license' unless they are based on an autobiography.

Like watching Bohemian Rhapsody, it was great to hear the songs again. And a reminder of how celebrities have to take care in who they surround themselves with.

Saw it also in the cinema when it came up, very disappointed with it. The highlight of the film for many friends was when Meg Ryan showed her boobies. Kilmer was an odd duck, kept in his Morrison persona at all times during the filming apparently. Yes he can sing, he sang a lot in an early movie of his called Top Secret, a funny and silly comedy movie that is worth seeing.

Morrison, man, what a force of nature. Kind of a case of " live by the persona, die by the persona," though.

Didn't feel very accurate if you ask me from what I knew of the band and Morrison.

 

[Chili]

Saw it also in the cinema when it came up, very disappointed with it. The highlight of the film for many friends was when Meg Ryan showed her boobies. Kilmer was an odd duck, kept in his Morrison persona at all times during the filming apparently. Yes he can sing, he sang a lot in an early movie of his called Top Secret, a funny and silly comedy movie that is worth seeing.

I have a book on Jim Morrison which have yet to read - Break on Through by James Riordan and Jerry Prochnicky. Riordan was a consultant on the Doors' film. Flipping through, there is a picture of Jim's dad, Admiral Morrison. Some shots of JM getting arrested on stage in New Haven. Interesting, Vincent Furnier of Alice Cooper was a drinking buddy. Will check out Top Secret, see that it was made by the Airplane gang.

 

[Hully14]

I just saw Civil War by Alex Garland. I thought it was decent but in all honestly it was not his strongest work. 6/10.

 

[Unholy Diver]

IF - A young girl going through a rough bit of family trauma works to reunite imaginary friends with the kids who grew into adults and forgot them, lots of feels in this one - 7/10



Garfield - another origin story for the fat orange cat, a good cast of actors for the voices, and a few chuckles 6/10

 

[ItsFineImFine]

The Fall Guy (2024) - 6/10

Decent cos of Gosling's charisma and chemistry with Emily Blunt but man am I too tired and getting too old to watch modern spastic action films like this. I think it worked a bit smoother on Bullet Train but it felt like a less polished mash-up by the same director here.

 

[The Macho King]

Saw it also in the cinema when it came up, very disappointed with it. The highlight of the film for many friends was when Meg Ryan showed her boobies. Kilmer was an odd duck, kept in his Morrison persona at all times during the filming apparently. Yes he can sing, he sang a lot in an early movie of his called Top Secret, a funny and silly comedy movie that is worth seeing.




Didn't feel very accurate if you ask me from what I knew of the band and Morrison.

The biggest problem with the Doors movie is the Doors really sucks as a band and I can't sit through a three hour movie about their trash music.

Haven't watched a ton of movies for me that weren't rewatches lately because of crazy shit at home. Did get three new ones from other people in the family.

Daughter picked the new The Little Mermaid.

Ugh. Just... f*** all of the live action Disneys. It sits right in the uncanny valley, looks completely washed out, and was way too f***ing long. The new songs sucked, the old ones still slap, but it felt like they took out one of the old bangers? These movies cannot be two hours. Disney thinks their target audience is nostalgic millenials, when it's actually still kids - so they need to keep that 85-95 minute run time.

4/10 at least the old songs still slap.


X

So... I mean pros is there's some boobies and I like boobies. I didn't love this though, but I'm not a big slasher movie fan. Definitely see a few winks to Texas Chainsaw Massacre and shit, but at the end of the day just felt like a standard slasher. Solid performances and all for what it is, but it is what it is.

5/10

Pearl

I know this one is generally more well regarded because Mia Goth gets to do more ACTING, but I actually liked it less. I just... didn't care. Took too long to get going, and when it got going I just didn't give a shit.

4/10

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Saw Furiosa or whatever last night and what a boring snorefest. 2.5/10

(I watched a few other films I didn't comment on, but that one was just too much)

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Another end of the month, another case of me rushing to watch a Walter Hill movie before it leaves Tubi (though I know full well it'll be back in another month or two). Finally caught Hard Times, which was Hill's debut. Along with Johnny Handsome, I'd put this among his underseen gems. Charles Bronson, James Coburn and Strother Martin in Depression-era New Orleans hustling bare-knuckle boxing bouts for cash. HIll's sense for setting is there from the jump. A lot of great scenery (the fight settings kinda remind me of fighting game backdrops — this one's in a factory, this one is on the deck of a boat, this one is at some sort of outdoor party, etc.). The action is lively. Hill's not in a rush to finish a fight and the foley work makes you feel the fleshy punches. It's a snappy script (I particularly enjoy every languid syllable that rolls gently out of Martin's mouth as the opium-addict doc). Hard men with honor. Desperate men hooked on action. Basic, but really satisfying stuff. Coburn gets to be chatty and shifty and Bronson, who is always more of a great presence than a good actor, is, for my money, at his best here. He's a weathered old oak with few words, but he makes every one count.

Bad Lieutenant. Abel Ferrara is perhaps the patron saint of grimy pre-Giuliani New York City. His films are flush with bad people, worse cops, violence, prostitution, drug use, etc. There's a real verisimilitude (Ferrara himself was a heroin addict), but they guy also has a knack for giving you a good, compelling "story." I use quotes because it's not always the story per se. He's more than willing to let actors loose and that makes for an interesting watch ("entertaining" doesn't always apply, though King of New York is a blast). Here it's Harvey Keitel playing a howling raw nerve of a corrupt cop. We watch him commit nearly every professional (and personal) sin imaginable, but when he looks in the face of true forgiveness, will he be able to start to right his wrongs? It's a deeply unpleasant, uncomfortable film, but Keitel is committed if you can stomach it. And again Ferrara manages to thread the needle between trash and art.

Legend. The good: I really like the vibe and look. Rick Baker's makeup and Tim Curry's performance are fantastic. The bad: Kinda dull. Recycled ideas and character types just done much better elsewhere. The ugly: Poor Tom Cruise. Can't decide what's worse here, his teeth or his bare legs. I heard somewhere that this is one of the movies that he just doesn't acknowledge. I can see why.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Watched We Need to Talk About Kevin again the other day. Reviewed it a while back so I'm not going to go through that again.

An excellently uncomfortable film. Strong acting all around, solid sound track, and an overall twisted plot. Ezra Miller really kills this role, no pun intended.

 

[Babe Ruth]

The Boys in the Boat (2023)

A standard issue sports underdog movie. Based on the true account of an American rowing team, that won gold at the '36 Olympics.
Good casting, inspiring piece of history. But just very basic underdog movie. Streamed it on Prime..

 

[Osprey]

Starcrash (1978) - 4/10

Credit to Roger Corman for noticing the success of Star Wars, being one of the first to rip it off and putting his heroine in a slave bikini years before George Lucas. Bond girl Caroline Munro's character Stella Star (seems redundant) gets captured early on and sentenced to manual labor in a black swimsuit, then continues to wear it even after she escapes and for most of the rest of the movie, but I'm not complaining. That and her other outfits are probably the highlights of the movie. If you do take your eyes off of her, though, you'll notice a Luke Skywalker wannabe who has unexplained special powers and fights with a lightsaber and a wholesome droid with corny sayings and a funny accent. Yes, this movie has no shame. Then, there's a baby-faced David Hasselhoff, whose acting is actually better than most of the cast's (which says a lot) and Christopher Plummer, who has easily the best acting, but perhaps the worst agent. The dialogue is atrocious and the plot doesn't make sense. The space battles have simplistic effects and it's hard to tell what's going on in them. The spaceships and space stations look like those spray-painted cups with glued-on macaroni that you made in kindergarten. One of the characters has green skin, but parts of the actor's neck are left exposed. There isn't enough time to list everything that's incompetent, stupid or just bad about this movie, but at least that made it consistently hilarious. I'm not sure that it's "so bad it's good," but I enjoyed laughing at it and am giving it a higher score than it probably deserves because of that.

---

Maximum Overdrive (1986) - 5/10

People get stuck at a truck stop by trucks that don't stop. You could say that it's a semi fun movie about the dangers of self-driving cars. Stephen King originally warned us in 1983 with Christine, but I guess that it wasn't taken seriously, so he personally directed this film a few years later to really drive home the danger that we might be in. Seriously, he could probably point to it as an example of the dangers of doing drugs because he claims that he was "coked out of his mind" during production. That would explain some things, but so would having no clue what he was doing as a first-time (and last-time) director. The trucks and other vehicles have more personality than the human characters and King seems to have more fun directing them, too. The movie is at its most entertaining when the vehicles are pretending to be alive and causing mass destruction, and at its worst when it focuses on the humans and tries in vain to create believable drama or even dialogue. It's also at its best whenever the soundtrack made up entirely of songs from AC/DC (reportedly, King's favorite band) is playing. If you're down for listening to some hard rock while some heavy metal obliterates buildings, cars and people, it's entertaining enough. It's just too bad that there isn't much more to it than that.

 

[Babe Ruth]

View attachment 878197
Starcrash (1978) - 4/10

Credit to Roger Corman for noticing the success of Star Wars, being the first to rip it off and putting his "Leia" in a slave bikini years before George Lucas. Bond girl Caroline Munro's character Stella Star (seems redundant) gets taken prisoner early on and is forced to do manual labor in a black swimsuit, then continues to wear it after she escapes and for most of the rest of the movie, but you won't hear me complaining. That and her other outfits are probably the highlights of the movie. If you do take your eyes off of her, though, you'll notice a Luke Skywalker wannabe who has unexplained special powers and fights with a lightsaber and a wholesome droid with corny sayings and a funny accent. Yes, this film has no shame. Then, there's a baby-faced David Hasselhoff, whose acting is actually better than most of the cast's (which says a lot) and Christopher Plummer, who has easily the best acting, but perhaps the worst agent. Besides the acting, the dialogue is atrocious and the plot doesn't make sense. The space battles are poorly edited, have crude effects and might trigger seizures. The spaceships and space stations look like those spray-painted cups with glued-on macaroni that you made in kindergarten. One of the actors has his face painted green, but parts of his neck are left exposed. There isn't enough time to list everything that's incompetent, stupid or just bad about this movie, but at least that made it consistently hilarious. I'm not sure if I'd say that it's so bad that it's "good," but I certainly enjoyed laughing at it.

I'm surprised (& disappointed) I've never heard of this..
Thanks for mentioning, I'm gonna try to find and stream it..
The image you posted, has a Gil Gerard' Buck Rogers feel to it.

 

[Osprey]

I'm surprised (& disappointed) I've never heard of this..
Thanks for mentioning, I'm gonna try to find and stream it..
The image you posted, has a Gil Gerard' Buck Rogers feel to it.

I hadn't heard of it until recently, either.
It's on all of the usual ad-supported services (Roku, Tubi, Crackle, Freevee, etc.).
Yes, it did feel more like Buck Rogers than Star Wars, and Munro's character reminded me of Erin Gray's character more than Leia, but it pre-dated Buck Rogers by a year.