Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Part#: Some High Number +3

[Voight]

Mid90s - saw this a couple months ago and really liked it. Great way to showcase that era.

Mr Hill did a fine job in his debut.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

The Prophecy

with half the cast of Pulp Fiction. Also Viggo Mortensen as Satan. But don't get your hopes up.

We open with a ceremony where priests are getting priested...but one receives visions about fighting angels and freaks. Years later, he's a homicide cop working a mysterious case. The loser of a vicious fight is found to be a hermaphrodite with no eyes and carries around a hand-written bible from almost two thousand years ago with extra bits after what we normally consider the end. Turns out there's been a stalemated war in Heaven over humans having souls, and one recently dead human holds the key to tip the war in the anti-human side's favour. Christopher Walken is the angel Gabriel, this side's leader. Eric Stoltz is Simon, who's trying to help the humans. Both have the odd habit of perching on the backs of chairs like birds, both enlist local humans to help them out, and souls are apparently transmitted through deep kissing. Bet you didn't know that.

Starts out okay in the gritty streets of NYC, but then the "action" relocates to a nearly deserted town in Arizona and spends the rest of its time plodding towards the ending. Christopher Walken is fully Christopher Walkened out. He can save people at the moment of death...to be his chauffeur. Really. The war in heaven has potential as a concept, but it goes really nowhere. Weirdly inappropriate and unintentional humour pop up here and there.

A bizarre misfire of a movie that somehow spawned two sequels I'm not going to watch.
*edit* No, there are four sequels. I...just...
*editedit* I don't know why the picture keeps disappearing...this thing is cursed.

For my next trick...any of you kids have a wristwatch I can borrow?

 

[kihei]

The Load (2019) Directed by Ognjen Glavonic 8C

During the UN bombing of Serbia in the '90s during the conflict with Croatia, a dour Serb drives potentially illegal trucks because he has no other form of income at the moment. He asks no questions, and just wants his pay check. We meet him at dawn out in the sticks before his third trip to Belgrade begins. He allows a young guy to hitchhike with him part of the way, but the young guy is not much more talkative than he is. They stop a couple of times and little things happen--a cigarette lighter is stolen, a wedding is going on, the truck hits a pothole attracting the attention of the police. Like a cat attracted by a shiny object, the movie briefly follows a few minor characters around for a minute or two, sometimes even less. However the movie always returns to its central character as we just ride along in the cab of the truck with him while watching the somewhat war-ravaged landscape go by. Finally upon completion of his journey, the driver is asked to clean out the truck and when he opens the back doors, we only see his reaction to what he discovers in the now empty container area. He goes home to his stressed out family who are drifting away from him. He decides to do something about what he has seen, though it may not be much or even close to enough This is a highly evocative example of slow cinema at its best. We paradoxically are given little information, but more than enough to figure out what is likely going on. The Load is a mood piece with a real depth of purpose, the purpose being to give the audience some sense of how confounding it can be to confront atrocity and how difficult it is not to feel emotionally and morally overwhelmed by such calamity. The Load is an intimate look at how one man does and does not deal with the unthinkable in a time of war.

subtitles

 

[Osprey]

Battlefield Earth (2000) - 3/10 (Really disliked it)

Sometimes, you're just in the mood for a good movie. This movie is not for those times. I had never seen this before tonight. Being unanimously called one of the worst movies of all time may've had something to do with that. The setting is the year 3000, when humans are endangered and slaves of a race of conquering aliens in dreadlocks and platform shoes who laugh a lot. Seriously, they really like laughing. The plot can be summed up as . Ok, I'll try. It involves Barry Pepper (whose character's middle name is Goodboy, no joke) leading a revolt against a really racist John Travolta that includes cavemen learning to pilot Harrier jets that still fly after sitting in storage for 1000 years and one caveman who didn't even know what a triangle was a few days earlier flying to the alien's planet to blow it up. The dialogue is as awful as the story. Thankfully, I can't remember any of it besides the aliens saying "crap" and "blasted" and Travolta's character using the terms "man-animals" and "rat brain" in nearly every other sentence. Speaking of which, Travolta's acting is just awful. It's like he's playing himself, not an alien from another world. Forest Whitaker isn't much better. Barry Pepper, on the other hand, somehow manages to be decent... or maybe his acting is bad and it just seems decent compared to the rest. It's hard to know for sure.

What I do know for sure is that the direction is some of the worst that I've ever seen. The majority of the shots are Dutch angled, or tilted, for no reason other than for the sake of trying to be stylish. Most of the movie looks like this, I kid you not:

At least whether a shot tilts left or right seems to be random, so your head doesn't get stuck to one side or the other. The editing is also occasionally hectic and inexplicable. For some reason, we're treated to a few unnecessary shots like a cow's leg being shot off (something that they actually CGI'ed), but when a human shoots an alien, we aren't shown the impact, just the body lying on the ground afterward. I guess that violence against aliens needs to be censored, but violence against cattle is fine.

Anyways, let me just cut to the summary. This is a really bad movie, but it's so bad that I actually laughed quite a bit (at it). For that reason and because I knew going in that it's awful, it's hard for me to "hate" it and give it a 1/10 or 2/10, even though it probably deserves that. Also, I actually got through it in one sitting, which is more than I can say for some movies (*cough*The Rise of Skywalker*cough*). It's available on Netflix and worth giving a shot if you've watched everything else on the service.

If you care to read a funny review, check out Roger Ebert's:
Battlefield Earth movie review (2000) | Roger Ebert

 

[member 51464]

Brittany Runs a Marathon - 4/10

The titular character is an asshole. There are no two ways about it. There is zero reason to root for her. She is crass, rude, and judgmental when she's fat and doesn't change as she gets thin.

She's also undeserving of the caring, love, and sympathy poured out to her from the endlessly compassionate and kind people in her life that accept her for all her flaws.

I'm not sure if I was supposed to feel bad for her or root for her because society is cruel to fat people. But in the same way she showed being unhealthy was her choice, so was being a jerk.

 

[kihei]

The Hunt for Red October (1990) Directed by James McTiernan 7A

Seems like a good time to revisit some old movies and see how they still hang together. The first movie I ever saw on Maui was The Hunt for Red October. I liked it a lot, but I always wondered if I would have liked it so much had I seen it in Toronto as Maui can warp one's judgement about things like that. But I watched it again last night, and it was every bit as good as I remember it. Ramius (Sean Conner), a Russian naval commander of a first-strike nuclear submarine, may or may not be defecting to the West. Or he may be off to start a nuclear war. It is up to Jack Ryan (a fresh-faced Alec Baldwin} to figure it out, and he thinks he has. The question is will anybody else take him seriously? The movie is everything I could want in a thriller. The set up, from the time Ryan realizes something is amiss to his arrival on a US submarine in the middle of the Atlantic, takes up over half the movie and is just perfectly executed. Director James McTiernan slowly, expertly allows all the pieces of the puzzle (Why is Ramius doing this in the first place, and what are his intentions?) to come together in an intelligent way, a task made easier by a talented, well chosen cast. The last 45 minutes of the movie are good, too, but it is the development of the plot up to the crisis point that sells the movie and makes it so special. Bringing gravitas and authority to his role as the rouge naval officer, Connery looks the part of a Russian naval captain to a tee, even if he chooses never to abandon his Scottish burr. In fact only Sam Neill risks a Russian accent from time to time, which only underscores the fact that nobody else is doing so. But that's an exceedingly minor quibble. Fine support comes from Neill, Scot Glenn, Stellen Skarsgard, Richard Jordan, and James Earl Jones--I don't think of this type of movie as lending itself to ensemble acting appraisals usually, but the whole cast is excellent. On my short list of best ever submarine thrillers.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Us (2019) - T'was okay. The final twist doesn't really add anything to the film besides a cheap ha-ah! moment and perhaps a societal platitude. Still, there's some tasteful shots, fun action but the camping is sometimes a little too campy and I think Peele got a lost in his own script which made it come across as a little too tangled. Certainly comes across as trying to be everything to everybody, equally attempting to offer intellectual commentary, complex plot, the dedication of aesthete and cheap, mainstream thrills that will appeal to the unfocused viewer. I respect the attempt - don't think he pulled it off fully. It's a fun film, though.

 

[OzzyFan]

Bloodshot
2.10 out of 4stars

Taking a quote from the film itself "You’ve already ripped off every movie cliché there is", which covers the vast majority of this movie in the sci fi action genre. Albeit there are a few decent CGI action sequences that were worth watching. Otherwise, entirely predictable, borrows from everything, and for some reason, which the trailer already does in 2minutes or so, takes the whole first 2/3 of the movie getting to "the main plot twist", Diesel's cognizance of the situation he is in. Very forgettable.

 

[ORRFForever]

How To Build A Girl (2020) :

Johanna Morgan (Beanie Feldstein) is a wannabe writer growing up in England in the 1990’s. She’s creative, talented and ambitious but no one takes her seriously. What follows is a coming of age movie about a young lady trying to make her mark in rock and roll journalism.

Feldstein is charming as the lead but her performance grows old and so does the movie – about 30 minutes in, I was looking at my watch.

How To Build A Girl is supposed to be a comedy but I didn’t laugh. It’s supposed to be inspirational but it fails to inspire. The movie wants to be a female version of Almost Famous, but it lacks the energy and fun and watching it was a chore.

3/10

Movie Trailer

 

[ORRFForever]

Capone (2020) :

If you were lucky enough to look like Tom Hardy (a cross between a young Marlon Brando and a young Paul Newman), would you cake your skin in makeup? Me neither, but Tom Hardy does exactly that - he has blood, boils and/or dead skin hanging from his face throughout the movie. Like sitting across from a bearded friend as he eats saucy chicken wings, it’s enough to turn your stomach.

To make matters worse, not once, not twice, but on three different occasions we see an incontinent Al Capone unintentionally emptying his bladders/bowels, as we, and his friends and family, cringe.

Yuck!!!

If we have to sit through that kind of ugliness, the movie better be great. Unfortunately, Capone is far from great.

Tom Hardy plays Al Capone after he's been released from prison and while syphilis destroys his mind and body. But, unlike in Legend when Hardy’s performance was the only reason to watch, Hardy makes things worse. His (over)acting, like everything else in this film, is so over the top, so in your face, it makes watching painful.

4/10

Movie Trailer :

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Capone (2020) :

If you were lucky enough to look like Tom Hardy (a cross between a young Marlon Brando and a young Paul Newman), would you cake your skin in makeup? Me neither, but Tom Hardy does exactly that through a large chunk of Capone when he has either blood or boils or dead skin (sometimes all three) hanging from his face. Like sitting across from a bearded friend as he eats saucy chicken wings, it’s enough to turn your stomach.

To make matters worse, not once, not twice, but on three different occasions we see an incontinent Al Capone unintentionally emptying his bladders/bowels, as we, and his friends and family, cringe.

Yuck!!!

If we have to sit through that kind of ugliness, the movie better be great. Unfortunately, Capone is far from great.

Tom Hardy plays Al Capone after he's been released from prison and while syphilis destroys his mind and body. But, unlike in Legend when Hardy’s performance was the only reason to watch, Hardy makes things worse. His (over)acting, like everything else in this film, is so over the top, so in your face, it makes watching painful.

4/10

Movie Trailer :

Huh. There's a thread for this movie somewhere on this forum...was honestly on the fence about whether or not I'd see it after seeing the trailer in that thread. Will probably give it a miss in that case.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

The Gentleman (2020) - 7/10

It's a shame the one highly rated film of 2020 was directed by....Guy Ritchie, eugh. I've seen this dance before but it's become more self-indulgent. It's basically a guilty pleasure at this point, a bit of mess but still somewhat entertaining. The usual bullshit, trying to show off how clever it is, everyone talks like a , they frequently use the word , slow motion, reverse frame, etc.

 

[ORRFForever]

Huh. There's a thread for this movie somewhere on this forum...was honestly on the fence about whether or not I'd see it after seeing the trailer in that thread. Will probably give it a miss in that case.

Rotten Tomatoes is 39% so I'm not alone is my disdain.

 

[ORRFForever]

The Lodge (2020):

Two young children lose their mother (a well aged Alicia Silverstone) after their father leaves her for a younger woman. Needless to say, the kids are not happy. Their father, who is the worst dad in cinema history, forces his kids to spend Christmas with his girlfriend while he works out of town. When he’s away, things go wrong... very wrong.

I have two major reservations with The Lodge:

1) I don’t like horror films that put children in harm’s way and The Lodge does it in spades.

2) The ending is ridiculous.

Having said that, the movie is not without its frightening moments. Lots of them. Just turn off your brain before you get to the ending.
7/10

Movie Trailer :

 

[ORRFForever]

Parasite (2019) :

No one has to convince me of the joys of Korean cinema, so while it was nice to see a Korean film win Best Picture in 2020, there are far better Korean movies: The Wailing, Burning, I Saw The Devil, Memories Of Murder and the Train To Busan to name a few.

As for Parasite:

A poor family weasels their way into a rich family’s life. At first, everything is fine. Then things get dark.

Sadly, I didn’t buy any of it.
6/10

Movie Trailer:

 

[ORRFForever]

23 Hours To Kill (2020): (*Netflix*)

Jerry Seinfeld's performance provides smiles but no laughs. The comedy (or lack thereof) feels stale/dated and all he does is scream. The one hour Netflix special is a major disappointment. Avoid!

2.5/10

 

[ORRFForever]

The Invisible Man (2020):

While watching the 2020 remake of The Invisible Man, I had to decide which was the bigger stretch:

1) Believing a man could fake his own death and become invisible;

2) Believing a billionaire would risk everything for Elizabeth Moss. If it was Scarlett Johansson... yes, Elizabeth Moss... not so much.

As for the plot…

A billionaire’s wife leaves him so he fakes his own death, becomes invisible to destroy her life, all in the hope of winning her back.

Yeah, it’s pretty bad.
3.5/10

 

[ORRFForever]

Inside Game (2019):

Poorly acted, poorly written, poorly made movie about referee Tim Donaghy betting on NBA games.

2.5/10

 

[ORRFForever]

1BR:

A young lady is trapped in a California cult - think of the lyrics to Hotel California (by the Eagles) but with LESS attractive people.

1BR has its scary moments but it feels more like a 90 minute episode of the Twilight Zone than a movie.

6/10

 

[ORRFForever]

Downhill (2020):

Downhill is a remake of the 2014 Swedish film Force Majeure and the premise is an interesting one :

A young family goes on a ski vacation. There’s an avalanche and the husband decides to save his cell phone while leaving his wife and children behind. Needless to say the wife is angry, while the husband denies, denies, denies. They work together to rebuild their marriage – which wasn’t strong to begin with.

I was a fan of the Swedish original – my 2014 review is below, and the 2020 American version isn’t horrible. Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell are fine and there are worse ways to waste 86 minutes during the pandemic.

Still, the movie lacks the tension of the original and the interesting family dynamic isn’t there.
4/10



****************************************************
Force Majeure (my review from 2014):

A man abandons his family in their time of need and his wife is unable to forgive let alone forget.

Force Majeure is an interesting character study that explores the changing roles of men, women and family. The wife is the strong silent type, the husband is an emotional mess, and the children side with their father - forgiving his weakness, while directing their anger towards their cold unforgiving mother.

Dark humour is sprinkled throughout and the film packs a depressing punch.
7.5/10

Spoken Languages are English, French, Norwegian and Swedish.

 

[Osprey]

ORRFForever suddenly re-appears after mysteriously going AWOL 6 months ago, starts regurgitating reviews for every single movie that he saw over that span and neither he nor anyone else says anything about it? It feels like the Twilight Zone.

Seriously, welcome back. We had a funeral for you. It was nice. Kihei brought flowers. You would've liked it.

 

[ORRFForever]

ORRFForever suddenly re-appears after mysteriously going AWOL 6 months ago, starts regurgitating reviews for every single movie that he saw over that span and neither he nor anyone else says anything about it? It feels like the Twilight Zone.

Seriously, welcome back. We had a funeral for you. It was nice. Kihei brought flowers. You would've liked it.

LOL!

Thanks, Osprey. My return has hopefully saved you from watching Capone - so something good came from it.

 

[Osprey]

Being John Malkovich (1999) - 4/10 (Disliked it)

This is usually where I summarize the film, but I can't even. What did I just watch? Suddenly, most of the movies that I thought were weird seem relatively tame. I didn't like it, but it's certainly not forgettable. In fact, I'll probably never be able to get it out of my head (if you know what I mean).

 

[ORRFForever]

Being John Malkovich (1999) - 4/10 (Disliked it)

This is usually where I summarize the film, but I can't even. What did I just watch? Suddenly, most of the movies that I thought were weird seem relatively tame. I didn't like it, but it's certainly not forgettable. In fact, I'll probably never be able to get it out of my head (if you know what I mean).

I didn't like it either.

 

[kihei]

Er, speaking of which:

What Did Jack Do? (2020) Directed by David Lynch ??

What Did Jack Do? is a seventeen minute film by David Lynch, shot in film noir style (mixed with Lynch's trademark weirdness, of course). The film is an interrogation by Lynch of a suspect in a murder case. So far, so good...but now we go way, way off the beaten path. The suspect is a Capuchin monkey who may have killed an orangutan who flirted with a chicken that the monkey claims he was in love with. The dialogue is both funny and very strange, especially as the monkey is something of a hard case who does not give information away easily. This short film is the oddest damn thing I have seen in I don't know how long. Must be seen to be fully appreciated.

availaable on Netflix