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

[SniperHF]

A Complete Unknown

Someone explain to me why this was up for 8 million awards (other than Oscar baity reasons?)
This movie is a well crafted plod with no overall theme no plot and no structure other than paint by numbers voyeurism. It leans heavily on Chalemet and Dylan's music; Chalamet is fine but he has nothing to do and I'm sure Dylan's music floats somebody's boat but it mostly doesn't land in 2025. It's devoid of any intrigue, humor, interesting dialog.

Maybe not every famous boomer generation singer needs a biopic? He's just kinda boring and if he wasn't this movie doesn't show it.

I also confess I only got through about 60% of it.

 

[Unholy Diver]

A Working Man - 8/10

Jason Statham is a former Royal Marine, now working as a construction worker (foreman?) in Chicago, when his boss's daughter is kidnapped for trafficking purposes by the Russian Mob. Obviously one guy vs the Russian Mob is a huge mismatch, unless that guy is a one man army, or in this case a one man Royal Marine corp. Statham mows through the Russian goons, in his typical style, a little more serious than I expected, not many of his typical hammy one-liners, but still a good watch if you are a fan of his, as I am, or just felt the need to see some bad guys get stabbed and limbs broken

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

I think the titles of the movies in the two above reviews could be swapped.

 

[shakes the clown]

saw A Complete Unknown for free this weekend. Weird movie in that I thoroughly enjoyed it, yet I can't think of even 3 things I learned about Bob Dylan. They really did a terrible job giving any meaning or substance to the movie. yet that said, I did like it.

 

[shakes the clown]

A Complete Unknown

Someone explain to me why this was up for 8 million awards (other than Oscar baity reasons?)
This movie is a well crafted plod with no overall theme no plot and no structure other than paint by numbers voyeurism. It leans heavily on Chalemet and Dylan's music; Chalamet is fine but he has nothing to do and I'm sure Dylan's music floats somebody's boat but it mostly doesn't land in 2025. It's devoid of any intrigue, humor, interesting dialog.

Maybe not every famous boomer generation singer needs a biopic? He's just kinda boring and if he wasn't this movie doesn't show it.

I also confess I only got through about 60% of it.

This is a terrible review. I also found the movie lacking, but to come here and say that the music mostly doesn't land in 2025 only serves to paint you as completely ignorant.


Why even give a review if you only watched half the movie?

 

[kihei]

Black Bag (2025) Directed by Steven Soderbergh 7A

Kathryn (Kate Blanchett) and George (Michael Fassbender) play married spies who work for British Intelligence in London. George discovers that a nasty device that can kill tens of thousands is in danger of falling into the wrong hands. Five candidates emerge for him to suss out and find the culprit. The trouble is one of the likelier suspects is his wife Kathryn. Much cat-and-mouse activity soon follows.

Director Steven Soderbergh plays around subtly and sometimes elegantly with traditional genre tropes, and Black Bag, with its heavy reliance on dialogue, is one of the more intelligent spy flicks to come down the pike in a while, basically a spy movie with a relationship movie tucked inside it. Some of the scenes crackle and pop in an amusing fashion, some of the scenes have a sharp-edged wit, but I would be lying if I claimed I could accurately recount all the intricacies of the maybe a-little-too-clever-by-half plot. But the movie is still a lot of fun, and both the acting and the production values are both classy and attractive. Fassbender's George could be (and likely is) an homage to a younger version on John le Carre's George Smiley, a taciturn spy/sleuth with a problematic wife who always keeps his cards close to his vest. It made me realize just how stingy Fassbender has always been with doling out the charm. He's definitely not a chummy actor who trades on being ingratiating. His self-containment, his ability to be opaque while remaining interesting, is his actor's superpower, and he is perfect for this role. And to top it all off, the movie delivers the goods in a mere 94 minutes, a bracingly refreshing running time.