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

[Chili]

Picnic at Hanging Rock-1975

'Everything begins and ends at exactly the right time and place.'

Valentine's Day, 1900 and a girl's school in Australia sets out on a picnic. Seems like a great location for the outing although there is a mysticism surrounding the area. The girls are warned about possible dangers although four girls do set out to explore the rock. Only one will later return...The author of the novel (Joan Lindsay) based the story on a dream (or dreams) but it comes across as a real incident. When I heard the pan flute, thought of Once Upon a Time in America and it was performed by the same brilliant artist (Gheorghe Zamfir). The score sets a tone for the film. Very well done mystery.

El Cid-1961

From the era of historical epics, another one starring Charlton Heston (he was quoted once saying that he didn't have a face for modern films). 11th century tale of Roderigo Diaz de Bivar (Charlton Heston as El Cid) leading defense of his Spanish homeland against the North African Moors. There is an on and off love story with Cid and Doña Ximena (Sophia Loren) which is distracting from the main plot at times because of the much larger story. The scale of some scenes, truly a 'cast of thousands', is awesome including a 'to the death' jousting match and massive battles. Beautifully shot on location. It's not Ben Hur, still an impressive film.

The Crying Game-1992

The film begins with the kidnapping of a British soldier, Jody (Forest Whitaker) in Northern Ireland. While he is being held and realizing his dire situation, the soldier opens up to one of his captors, Fergus (Stephen Rea) sharing details of his personal life . The story later shifts to London where Fergus tries to find the special friend Jody spoke of (Jaye Davidson). Feels like two separate stories (which later merge) and with significant plot twists to keep things interesting. Davidson, who wasn't an actor is very good here. Well done thriller, original.

 

[Nakatomi]

Cinema Paradiso - 4/10

Even the shorter Director's Cut, which I understand to be the one that gets all the praise and is beloved, is too long.

About the best thing I can say is there are some amazing shots of Sicily to be enjoyed. But all in all, it is pure, unadulterated schmaltz. I took a long time to get around to this "classic" and don't feel like I would've missed anything had I never seen it. Oh well.

 

[Babe Ruth]

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..

Thanks. I streamed it on Tubi. I did see the Star Wars influence, including Hasselhoff's lightsaber fight with the two robots.
After watching it, my closest comparison would be, it felt like a poor man's Flash Gordon.
It was funny that the Erin Gray character's prison uniform consisted of high heel boots, a bikini, and big earrings.
It seemed like a lot of available effort was put in to the special effects(?) And if nothing else, Starcrash is a good (aesthetic) time capsule of late 70s sci-fi..

Incidentally, you notice the credits were overwhelmingly Italian last names.. was there such a genre as spaghetti sci-fi?

 

[Osprey]

Incidentally, you notice the credits were overwhelmingly Italian last names.. was there such a genre as spaghetti sci-fi?

Yeah, it was an American-Italian co-production and was filmed in Rome. Most of the crew was Italian, including the director, who was credited under an Anglicized pseudonym. Most of the cast was English-speaking, but, interestingly, the British lead actress (Munro) was dubbed because they wanted her to sound American. It's hard to notice, though, because the dub is well synced to her lips.

There were other spaghetti sci-fis from around that time. There were also spaghetti post-apocalyptic films that tried to capitalize on Mad Max, like The New Barbarians, aka Warriors of the Wasteland, which you can find on Prime and YouTube, if you dare.

 

[Unholy Diver]

Yeah, it was an American-Italian co-production and was filmed in Rome. Most of the crew was Italian, including the director, who was credited under an Anglicized pseudonym. Most of the cast was English-speaking, but, interestingly, the lead actress (Munro) was dubbed, despite being British, because they apparently wanted her to sound American. It's hard to notice, though.

Yeah, there were other spaghetti sci-fis from around that time. There were also spaghetti post-apocalyptic films that tried to capitalize on Mad Max, like The New Barbarians, aka Warriors of the Wasteland, which you can find on Prime and YouTube, if you dare.

Though it was not Italian, and pre-dates Mad Max, I have a soft spot for A Boy and his Dog when it comes to lower grade/cult post apocalyptic movies

 

[Osprey]

Though it was not Italian, and pre-dates Mad Max, I have a soft spot for A Boy and his Dog when it comes to lower grade/cult post apocalyptic movies

I watched it for the first time a couple of years ago. It wasn't what I expected. Also, according to my review, it takes place in 2024.

 

[spintheblackcircle]

Everyone knows what a POS Spacey is, but that doesn't take away all the excellent work he did. I am happy with him not getting work anymore because he is a predator, but he is one of the best actors in the last 30 years, screen and stage.

 

[CDJ]

Babes (2024)

Your wife/girlfriend/baby mama will probably love it. Not super relatable as an unmarried childless dude in his 30s but still entertaining and funny. Good cast, good premise. I was hoping I’d like it as much as Bridesmaids and while it fell short of that movie I still found it to be of quality. Easy watch. Touched on things like the evolution of friendships over time, PPD, and the chaos of parenthood.


7.2/10

 

[Nakatomi]

Cruel Intentions and Law Abiding Citizen. Both trash.

 

[CDJ]

Cruel Intentions and Law Abiding Citizen. Both trash.

Law abiding citizen is a guilty pleasure of mine. It’s a garbage movie but f*** it Gerard butler and Jamie Foxx are so cool

 

[Spring in Fialta]

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.

Love BL and have no idea what Herzog was doing when he clearly ripped it off (and then denied it) with his Nic Cage re-imagining. I think Keitel's performance is one of the greatest ever in that film.

 

[Nakatomi]

A Simple Favor - 7/10

The plot got beyond far fetched, but it was fun enough before dragging in the second half. Whoever was in charge of wardrobe for Blake Lively was having a ball.

 

[Raging Bull]

Cinema Paradiso - 4/10

Even the shorter Director's Cut, which I understand to be the one that gets all the praise and is beloved, is too long.

About the best thing I can say is there are some amazing shots of Sicily to be enjoyed. But all in all, it is pure, unadulterated schmaltz. I took a long time to get around to this "classic" and don't feel like I would've missed anything had I never seen it. Oh well.

I'm not a fan of it either, but the score is absolutely terrific.

 

[CDJ]

The Watchers by Ishana Night Shyamalan (2024)

M.Night’s daughter made her directorial debut at 24/25 with this one. It’s not reviewing well with critics but is getting a more middling score from audiences. I kinda liked it to be honest- its origins lie in Irish lore, the setting was beautiful, the monsters were genuinely creepy, It was nice to see Dakota Fanning…I forgot she existed! She did good. The crazy old lady from Tarot was in it too. She plays the same kinda character in every PG-13 horror movie apparently.

You can tell it’s written and directed by a Shyamalan, the end started to lose me a little but she did a better job than her dad did in some of his movies in terms of getting things back on the rails imo.

I went 6.0/10

Not gonna agree with critics every time and if I did then where is the fun in that?

 

[PK Cronin]

IF - 4/10

Saw this one the other day and it wasn't good. A good premise with poor execution that at times became a jumbled mess. I'm not really sure what the moral of the story is at this point and seemed to want to go in 4 or 5 different directions and never picked one. Plot holes were all over the place, which is slightly expected for a kids movie but this was too much for me. The acting is mediocre considering the cast as well. The visuals were nice and that was the largest positive. Wouldn't recommend and I don't think I'd ever watch it again.

 

[sr edler]

The Apartment (1960) by Billy Wilder – 10/10

This film's fantastic. I don't think I need to say much more.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Furiosa

I don't know how to rank this one. Overall, I did like it, albeit not remotely as much as Fury Road. It had lots of great shots and the setpiece action scenes were great, albeit a marked step down from Fury Road. I will never complain about more Immortan Joe, and Anya Taylor Joy did a good job playing a younger version of Charlize Theron's character. Loads and loads of dumb campy moments, but mostly in an endearing way.

All that being said, the film felt like it was a fully fleshed out multi-season epic TV series that then, in turn, got chopped up and crunched down into a single movie. The parts that are well-paced are intersparsed with massive jumps in pace and temp and time skips galore even mid-battle scene. And overall it definitely felt confined within the need to put the various characters and pieces in the right place for Fury Road.

Fury Road is a movie that I'd recommend to anyone, and I say that as someone that never saw a previous Mad Max film. Furiosa is really only for people that absolutely adored Fury Road. Definitely watch if you are jonesing for some more of that, but skip otherwise.

 

[The Macho King]

View attachment 878197
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.

I was at the How Did This Get Made live show for this movie.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Watched I Saw the TV Glow couple days back. I'll write a review when I'm back at work tomorrow but there's a lot going on there. Jesus. A lot of it works but part of the story landed with a thud to me, at least in terms of how it was delivered.

 

[Fiji Water]

The Human Condition Part 1, Kobayashi

The first part in Kobayashi's 3 part, 9.5 hr magnum opus. The dialogue is cringy at times and the messages are sometimes delivered in a heavy handed manner, but that is more than made up for by the film's sincere belief in its message. Released just 15 years after the end of WW2, it took a lot of guts for Kobayashi to cast such a negative light on Japan's actions during that time period. Actor Tatsuya Nakadia is phenomenal as the lead character, and the shot making and framing by Kobayashi is simply remarkable throughout. I very much look forward to watching the rest of the trilogy over the coming days.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

I Saw the TV Glow (2024) - Man, does that movie have a whole lot going for it. The basic premise - two suburban teenagers from difficult households bond over a kid's horror show ala Buffy/Goosebumps and find it has genuine supernatural powers - is fantastic and the fictional show perfectly nails the aesthetic and adds its own superb touch to them, making the film immediately enthralling. In terms of what the film actually looks like, that one is close to a ten for me and pretty much is what kept my entire throughout as the story itself both takes a long time to get going and becomes rather convoluted inside its 90 minutes run time. But the way it plays with its rainbow colors and contrasts those with the greyness of basic suburbia feels like a phenomenal ode to those old shows from the 90s and almost seems to illustrate how much potential those series ultimately had and how short they fall when you give it a re-watch as an adult (something that the movie also briefly touches upon late in the film).

The story's LGBT themes are pretty apparent right away and while I wouldn't go so far as to say it bashed the viewer with them (my wife would disagree here), it does seem to have almost too much to say at times. As the story reveals itself rather slowly, I find that it ultimately becomes somewhat murky, albeit with beautiful imagery. What didn't help me is that the audio sometimes made it a bit difficult to get exactly what a character was saying (and they're odd speakers to begin with) so I missed a couple of key lines that would have helped me understand fully during the viewing. Talking with my wife walking home afterward, she was able to break it down for me (rightfully calling me stupid in the process) and found the story's points very apparent so this might just be me so at a certain point didn't care too much to understand and just enjoyed the scenes.

With that said, some of them felt useless or repetitive, which didn't always help with confusion as the movie is heavy on metaphor - even the characters of the fictional show are an easy parallel to the film's characters. It was all very interesting and sometimes well made but it did feel like the structure of the writing could have been tightened a bit because the plot and points themselves are tightly made. With that said, as someone who really can't relate to those kind of struggles with my sexuality, I did find it highly original and I'm not someone who needs to understand everything about something to like it. But it certainly felt a bit forced, sometimes. Great flick though but I don't think it's for everyone. I certainly enjoyed it more than my date did.

 

[Nakatomi]

Tenebrae - 7/10

A classic giallo. I really enjoyed it. Argento sure can craft a beautiful film. I watched this in 4K UHD and it is absolutely stunning. I really enjoy his use of lighting and wish more directors took his lead. No matter the night scene, you can see what you are meant to see. A great score too.

 

[CDJ]

Mad Max Fury Road: 8.8/10


Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga 8.6/10


Loved these movies, gonna have to watch the Mel Gibson originals. Those two are among my fav actions movies now. Furiosa was almost as good as Fury Road

 

[Juve]

I also put this in the horror thread.

I watched The First Omen yesterday. The original Omen is my favourite horror movie and possibly my favourite movie of all time. That said, I read the reviews. The movie was being praised left and right on IMDB and Reddit. I was looking forward to watching the prequel.

I watched the movie. The reviews baffled me, did these people watch the original Omen?

- The Father Brennan was squeaky clean in this movie. Not like in the original Omen where he was part of the plan to give Damien to Robert. He died trying to repent for his actions.

- In the original, Father Brennan tells Robert he was there when "it" gave birth. I guess they forgot in this prequel because he wasn't there

- Father Brennan also explains to Margeret, there are two churches. The other church created an anti-christ to bring people back people to church by causing fear. This is a dumb reason how to bring people back to church and it's the plot of the first movie. Damien was to be put in politics to be the future president. Also, if you look at the final movie, Damien was hell-bent on defeating the Nazarene and not bringing people back to church.

- The Orignal movie, Robert finds out Damien's birth mother is a Jackal. You see the jackal bones in the grave. In this movie she's not really a jackal and Satan or a vessel of Satan is the Jackal. It was some weird incest because you find out Margeret is not really just a normal young girl, she's a half anti-christ that they brought back to produce a male anti-christ with her father. I guess they are going to say she's a Jackal hybrid. Again, the mother was a full blown jackal and not a hybrid.

- In the original movie the jackal mom is dead. In this one, she's still alive and also gives birth to a twin. There was never a mention of a twin.

- Margaret the protagonist, manages to escape a fire with her Anti-Christ Carlita sister and her twin Anti-Christ daughter. Father Brennan approaches in the sticks to reveal all three hiding. Father Brennan warns them the Church will be looking for them. You witness the new Avengers team-up. I am assuming this is a setup for future movies?

- They hardly used the music from the original trilogy. The soundtrack from the original movies is absolutely fantastic.


It was an ok movie. It would have made a good horror movie if it was a standalone movie and not a prequel of The Omen. It did not feel like a prequel to The Omen. I was left disappointed.

I give it a 7/10 if it was a standalone. Since this is supposed to be a prequel, it get 3/10.

 

[Unholy Diver]

The Lord of the Rings trilogy was in a special re-release last weekend with the extended versions

Took my 7 y/o daughter who soldiered through all 3 for a total of a bit over 11 hours

Enjoyed all three, but especially The Two Towers, and Return of the King, some epic battle scenes, and it had been so long since I had seen them originally, I didn't remember them all that well so with the extended versions, a lot of it felt new to me.