Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate it | New Year New thread

[shadow1]

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) - 6/10

FBI Agents Mulder and Scully investigate a mysterious bomb threat.

Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny reprise their TV roles. With the X-Files department closed, the agents are sent to Dallas to investigate a bomb threat against a federal building. When no bomb is found in the building, an unexpected turn of events has the agents' actions questioned by an FBI panel. As Scully digs to uncover evidence, Mulder is approached by a mysterious author (Martin Landau) who claims to have evidence of a government conspiracy...

The X-Files: Fight the Future was directed by Rob Bowman and written by Chris Carter. The movie, which was filmed prior to Season Four of the TV series, hit theaters between Seasons Five and Six. The original intention was for Fight the Future to serve as both an ending for the series and a launching point for a series of X-Files films. However, studio owner Fox didn't want to do this, as The X-Files was too popular and lucrative in television form. As a result, the film acts as a bridge between Seasons Five and Xix, while also telling its own story. How does Fight the Future fare?

It's an okay film. Fight the Future feels like a legitimate movie, rather than just another episode of The X-Files. The budget is bigger, the language and humor are coarser, and the story is more bombastic. This is definitely a movie "for the fans" though, as there is a lot of fan service and easter eggs. Series regulars The Lone Gunmen (Tom Braidwood, Dean Haglund, Bruce Harwood), Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), and the Smoking Man (William B. Davis) all have supporting roles.

Fight the Future's story is servicable and the first act is strong, sucking you in right away. But like the mythology of the TV show, the more the layers of the mystery are peeled back, the less interesting things become. At slightly over 2 hours in length, by the time Fight the Future's third act rolls around, I found myself zoning out, despite the stakes being at their highest point. The film's ending is tropey and devoid of real tension, though, as we know they aren't going to kill off the lead characters. Another criticism is that if you don't refresh your memory of Season Five of the TV series, you're going to get lost - fast.

Overall, The X-Files: Fight the Future is a movie for the fans. As a science fiction film it's relatively generic, but my God, did you see the moment when Mulder and Scully almost kissed!? A light 6 for me, Fight the Future has a 7.0 on both IMDB and Letterboxd, so take this review with a grain of salt. The film was a box office success, earning $189M against its $66M budget.

 

[kihei]

Presence (2024) Directed by Steven Soderbergh 3A

Finally caught up with this one. Presence is ostensibly a horror movie, seen from the point of view of the "presence" that is haunting a suburban house inhabited by a family in crisis. In other words, the camera is the presence's "eyes" and we go where the presence goes. Initially I was sort of surprised the presence had to seemingly "walk" downstairs--what's the fun of being a presence if your locomotion simulates that of humans. However, this concern was quickly overwhelmed by boredom. Presence is neither scary, nor horrific, nor spooky, nor creepy, nor gory, nor much of anything at all. I'm not sure what director Steven Soderbergh was going for here, maybe an anti-horror horror film? Don't know, and have been given no reason to care. All I do know is that the movie didn't work for me at all.

 

[Unholy Diver]

Night of the Zoopocalypse - 7.5/10

Inspired by a concept from Clive Barker

Enjoyable animated PG "horror", a bit of a meteor crashes through the wall of a barn only to be eaten by a cute little petting zoo bunny, transforming the bunny into a glowing eyed slimy monster, hellbent on attacking and infecting all his fellow zoo animals. The heroes are led by Gracie, a young wolf and Dan, a new to the zoo mountain lion, it has your typical group mismatched zombie flick survivors who must put aside their difference for the good of mankind, or in this instance animalkind.

 

[Pink Mist]

Carnival of Souls (dir. Herk Harvey, 1962)

There’s a dreamlike, otherworldly quality to Carnival of Souls that lingers long after the credits roll. Shot on a shoestring budget by industrial filmmaker Herk Harvey, this eerie, low-budget horror flick manages to carve out a unique place in the genre, blending psychological terror with surrealist, almost Lynchian imagery before David Lynch was even a thing.


Candace Hilligoss plays Mary Henry, a woman who survives a car accident only to find herself increasingly detached from the world around her. Her move to a new town for a church organist job is shadowed by strange visions of a ghostly figure (played by Harvey himself) and an inexplicable pull toward a deserted carnival pavilion. As she drifts between the real and the unreal, the film steadily builds an unsettling sense of isolation, making Mary’s journey feel like a slow descent into the unknown.


What makes Carnival of Souls stand out is its atmosphere. The stark black-and-white cinematography and eerie organ score create an almost hypnotic experience. The ghostly ballroom sequence and Mary's silent, panic-stricken wanderings through an empty world are haunting in their simplicity. This is horror in its purest, most existential form—less about jump scares and more about the creeping realization that something is deeply, cosmically wrong.


That said, the acting can be stilted at times, and some of the pacing feels rough around the edges. But what Carnival of Souls lacks in polish, it makes up for in sheer, unshakable mood. It’s the kind of film that seeps into your subconscious, leaving you unsettled in a way you can’t quite explain. Not a perfect film, but an essential one—especially for fans of psychological horror and eerie, low-budget gems.

 

[The Macho King]

So I decided to do a full Star Trek watch from The Motion Picture through Beyond, and started today with The Motion Picture.

So I love this movie? Is it slow? Absolutely. But it looks amazing, it's tense, and i think the performances are terrific. It also just *feels* like Star Trek.

It gets a bad rap but I think this f***ing sings. I haven't seen it in about 10 years but I like it even more than I remember. Feels like it took more pointers from 2001 than Star Wars, but I think it's to its benefit.

8/10

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

A Damaged Drunken Denzel Double Feature: Man on Fire and Flight.

The first is a clear precursor to The Equalizer series (among other things) where a broken-down Denzel takes a bodyguard gig for a family in Mexico. He develops a bond with their young girl and when she's snatched it sets him out on a righteous vengeance spree. As I said previously with the Equalizer movies if you like Denzel being a cool movie star, then you'd like this. Even when he plays a little busted he's still the shrewdest man in the room. He really may be the absolute best at this. A young Dakota Fanning gives a great performance that transcends typical kid actor precociousness. Christopher Walken is a perfectly distributed bit of seasoning. Tony Scott directs with his typical manic style.

This is actually a remake of a mid/late-80s movie staring Scott Glenn. That movie has a few points of interest. As the story goes Tony Scott wanted to do this movie back then, but lost out on it so he clearly kept this on his mind. It's in Italy rather than Mexico. Scott Glenn is an actor I like and he has his moments, but he's no Denzel. The fun reason to see this is Joe Pesci in what would become the Christopher Walken role. He's not better, but he is spastic and entertaining (including a bizarre cover of Johnny B. Goode). The weirdest thing is the almost romantic vibe between Glenn and the young girl in this ... shades of the ickiness in Leon/The Professional that was to come.

But the new version is a good testament to mining movies that weren't maybe totally successful as remake material rather than trying to revisit classics.

Part two of my double feature was Flight. Robert Zemeckis' return from a decade plus of trying to force awful mo-cap movies down society's throat. He does a pretty good job with living people. Might have the most obvious soundtrack in movie history (you know Denzel feels alright when you hear Feelin' Alright). John Goodman and James Badge Dale have memorably showy supporting roles. Don Cheadle is a rock. But the real reason to watch this is, of course, a towering Denzel performance. This is pretty rote substance abuse drama stuff but Denzel is magnetic even with middling material. I'm wrestling with the movie overall. The climatic scene is gangbusters but I don't know if the movie totally lands the plane (sorry. i'm so, so sorry).

My conflict is symbolicly tied up in how the movie portrays alcohol (bad) and cocaine (definitely good). I am sure the writer (who himself had substance abuse issues) would disagree with me, but I don't think that's what is portrayed in the movie at all. Should he (or anyone use cocaine?) Probably not! But cocaine clearly bails him out on multiple occasions here. Similarly, there's a conflict about whether or not Denzel's character acted responsibly or not ... and the movie kinda has it both ways.