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

[ProstheticConscience]

John Wick 3: Parabellum.

with Keanu Reeves, Halle Berry, Ian McShane and a whole lotta dead people.

We return to the tattoo-covered, hairy-chested alternate universe where everyone is either a superhuman hitman or an employee of some ancillary business supporting hitman trades for Keanu Reeves' third trip to the well as the (near enough) immortal assassin John Wick. The headshot highlight reel picks up right after the events of the 2nd movie, and John's on the run with a $14 million...no, wait! $15 million bounty on his head. Every wannabe hitman on the planet crawls out of the woodwork with visions of 15 million cool dollars dancing in their heads...and those visions have lots of room to move because those heads apparently contain no memory of John Wick spending two previous movies mowing down entire city blocks just for shits and giggles. Long passages go by with all the suspense of watching a Twitch streamer romping through Call of Duty on easy mode using an aimbot. Halle Berry shows up for a while and brings her two Alsatians along for some furry fun, lending an air of an NPC escort mission for about 15 minutes. The crux of the matter is The Table (management of the hitman universe) is pissed at the only people who were smart enough to let John Wick go without trying to kill him in the last two movies, and open rebellion threatens to break out against them. They recruit a horde of ninjas from the local sushi bar, and it's open war in the well-appointed indoor atria of NYC and elsewhere.

It actually manages some interest here and there. Some genuinely creative fights and set pieces happen involving museums, stables, horses, motorcycles (because duh, Keanu Reeves), locations show some variety, and the single most important thing in this movie's favour: no rapid cuts and no shaky cam. I can't tell you how much more tolerable that makes this movie. Most of the fights happen in one continuous shot. Logic? Reason? Plot? Yeah, not so much. So you've got to deliver the goods in an action movie like this, and...yeah, it does for a lot of the time. If you've watched the last two John Wick movies and liked them, you'll like this.

Nobody messes with his puppy this time.

Oh, and I'm getting sick of Ian McShane being Ian McShane in everything he's in. Who does he think he is, Al Pacino?

 

[VanIslander]

The Mercenary (2019).

The three action scenes to begin reads like a plotless dumb countinual action flick devoid of character or story development.

But then, as soon as Father Elias enters the film, it slows down, develops and displays great acting, quiet moments of momentous intent, and a heart.

Overall it is a 5/10.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

What Did Jack Do? (Lynch, 2017) - A fun short that kind of runs a little too long. It's Lynch, and it's no surprise that there's a uniqueness to it, but it quickly wears thin, and the ending is underwhelming (the atmosphere makes you expect something more of a punch, comedic or absurd, but nah, just falls flat at the end). Still, you've got a monkey speaking and saying stuff that feels like clichés you've all heard before - and that in itself is comedy gem. 5/10

Did you know David Lynch was asked to direct Return of the Jedi? He turned it down to spend years filming Dune, but I recently saw What Did Jack Do? and I finally realized why he was considered for RotJ.

He's the only guy who can write dialogue as ridiculous as George Lucas. My wife's been watching old Twin Peaks episodes lately. David Lynch is the only director other than George Lucas who can really make you say: "Who the hell talks like this?!"

 

[Osprey]

Joker (2019) - 3/10 (Really disliked it)

It's bleak, depressing and awkward. It's highly focused on a repulsive character, and the rest of the characters aren't that likable, either. It didn't make sense to me in various places and seemed forced (like Murray's fascination with him and people mistreating him when they know that he's unstable and owns a gun). It didn't seem to me to have any redeeming qualities, much less 11 worthy of Oscar recognition. Well, OK, Phoenix is pretty good and deserves recognition, but I don't get the other 10, including Best Picture and Best Director. All that the director had to do was let Phoenix do his thing and then garnish the film with slow motion shots, saccharine music and fan service. I will say that it seems like a credible backstory for Joker, but that doesn't feel to me like enough reason for making the film. It just seems to me like it was made because these movies are popular right now, not because the story needed to be told or it had something to say (especially not about mental health), and it's gotten all of these nominations as recognition for it being a $1B-grossing film. I didn't think that I would like it, but I was actually surprised at how much I disliked it.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Did you know David Lynch was asked to direct Return of the Jedi? He turned it down to spend years filming Dune, but I recently saw What Did Jack Do? and I finally realized why he was considered for RotJ.

He's the only guy who can write dialogue as ridiculous as George Lucas. My wife's been watching old Twin Peaks episodes lately. David Lynch is the only director other than George Lucas who can really make you say: "Who the hell talks like this?!"

No I don't think I knew that, and am I glad he turned it down...

 

[Captain Bowie]

Game Night, because Netflix kept recommending it. It was just OK, like a 5/10.

 

[Trap Jesus]

Watched Uncut Gems. Absolutely loved it. I thought the weird way it started was interesting but it took me about 5 minutes after they go to Sandler to get acclimated to how it was presented. I thought maybe I was missing something as to who certain characters were with everyone talking over one another and the background noise amplified so much, but knowing the Safdie Bros, it was more just presented that way to give you just a little bit of what you needed to know, and letting the atmosphere kind of envelop you. Unlike Good Time, which I think was more reliant on its visual style and close-ups for that kind of kinetic pace and feel, this was more about just the general energy keeping things moving at a blinding speed.

Sandler really is incredible in this. He brings a certain charm to the character where you root for him even though he's despicable and making these absolutely piss poor and selfish decisions. I also thought the mistress character was so well handled. I actually genuinely felt some kind of connection between them, which is insane for this type of movie.

Absolutely hilarious situational humor, where so much is just piling up for Sandler that you can't help but laugh at it all. I'm also huge into sports so I really appreciated that angle of it all. I think Garnett was great in this. It's so interesting that they had the idea for the story but worked it into an actual NBA series arc to make it all work. It's such an interesting idea to have this fictional story but ground it in kind of an obscure real life event where things are operating behind the scenes.

The Lighthouse is my definitely favorite of the year, but this and Marriage Story are kind of 2A and 2B, ahead of Knives Out. Excellent year for movies.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Ford vs Ferrari (2019) - 8/10

Matt Damon, Christian f***ing Bale

Frances Ha (2012) - 9/10

Still got it on rewatch

A Place In The Sun (1951) - 7/10

Dragged out

 

[Scouter]

Joker (2019) - 3/10 (Really disliked it)

It's bleak, depressing and awkward. It's highly focused on a repulsive character, and the rest of hte characters aren't that likable, either. It didn't make sense to me in various places and seemed forced (like Murray's fascination with him and people mistreating him when they know that he's unstable and owns a gun). It didn't seem to me to have any redeeming qualities, much less 11 worthy of Oscar recognition. Well, OK, Phoenix is pretty good and deserves recognition, but I don't get the other 10, including Best Picture and Best Director. All that the director had to do was let Phoenix do his thing and then garnish the film with slow motion shots, saccharine music and fan service. I will say that it seems like a credible backstory for Joker, but that doesn't feel to me like enough reason for making the film. It just seems to me like it was made because these movies are popular right now, not because the story needed to be told or it had something to say (especially not about mental health), and it's gotten all of these nominations as recognition for it being a $1B-grossing film. I didn't think that I would like it, but I was actually surprised at how much I disliked it.

Yeah, I tried to watch it and it just came across as depraved nihilism. Not to mention it's a blatant crappy Taxi Driver rip off, way overrated if you ask me.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Day of the Dead: Bloodline

with 4th rate lookalike knockoffs of Natalie Portman, Colin Farrell, Ashton Kutcher, Javier Bardem and others.

Zero budget zombie flick about people you won't care about at all making idiotic decisions and then getting eaten by zombies. A med student named Zoe witnesses the outbreak of a zombie attack, and years later she talks the Colin Farrell lookalike who runs their military shelter into letting her and a few people make a supply run for antibiotics to the uni she was studying at. She runs into the stalker who tried to rape her on the eve of zombocalypse, and despite being a zombie, he's still smitten with her and smarter than everyone else in this movie put together. Bloodshed ensues.

Numbingly stupid even by the subterraneanly low standards of zombie flicks.

On Netflix now. Avoid at all costs.

 

[OzzyFan]

Doolittle
1.75 out of 4stars

Almost everything involving the story or it's characters are underdeveloped or unanswered. Most of the scattershot humor is imo too crude for PG or too quick witted/past the target demographic's head(young children). Downey Jr is ok in the film, but it looked like they even redubbed his voice in some of the scenes, possibly because his accent was off or parts of the dialogue were rewritten. Everything just felt thrown together and/or incomplete and the biggest payoff was....the visuals???(CGI animals and settings) . I honestly can't believe a studio green lit this film with a $175million budget given it's script and circumstances.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Nightbreed (Barker, 1990) - Prime has the director's cut, which I hadn't seen before. Considering there was never a sequel made and that it doesn't matter if the ending opened on something the author/director never intended, I think I prefer the original theatrical cut. The director's cut's whole ending is kind of melodramatic and didn't work so well for me. Still, I'm a big fan of the film. It kind of feels cheap and dated (a lot more than Hellraiser, who only had a small fraction of the still (way too) limited budget of Nightbreed), it doesn't really work as a horror film, but as a modest fantasy film, it holds up very nicely. The other, for the cast aside or the deviant (the monster), is here made absolutely acceptable and understandable, something that Barker executes with grace. 7/10

 

[Scouter]

Doolittle
1.75 out of 4stars

Almost everything involving the story or it's characters are underdeveloped or unanswered. Most of the scattershot humor is imo too crude for PG or too quick witted/past the target demographic's head(young children). Downey Jr is ok in the film, but it looked like they even redubbed his voice in some of the scenes, possibly because his accent was off or parts of the dialogue were rewritten. Everything just felt thrown together and/or incomplete and the biggest payoff was....the visuals???(CGI animals and settings) . I honestly can't believe a studio green lit this film with a $175million budget given it's script and circumstances.

Yeah, the film had reshoots and there's this interesting information: In January 2020, Robert Downey Jr discussed on Joe Rogan's podcast (The Joe Rogan Experience) that the premise of the Dr. Dolittle character in his film stemmed from a Welsh neo-pagan physician called William Price. In the podcast he said: "Same way I did with Iron Man.. all right there's something here and then before I signed on, I was just googling 'weirdest Welsh doctor', I just wanted to think of, I don't want to just do another English accent.. so there was this guy called William Price, who's a nutty Welsh doctor, he was a neo-druidist, he believed that he could communicate with all nature and all that stuff, so I sent a picture of this wild looking guy wearing this kind of suit with stars on it and like a staff in his hand, so I sent that to Gaghan and he goes, "That looks good to me" and I was like "great let's do this movie"".

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

Day of the Dead: Bloodline

with 4th rate lookalike knockoffs of Natalie Portman, Colin Farrell, Ashton Kutcher, Javier Bardem and others.

Zero budget zombie flick about people you won't care about at all making idiotic decisions and then getting eaten by zombies. A med student named Zoe witnesses the outbreak of a zombie attack, and years later she talks the Colin Farrell lookalike who runs their military shelter into letting her and a few people make a supply run for antibiotics to the uni she was studying at. She runs into the stalker who tried to rape her on the eve of zombocalypse, and despite being a zombie, he's still smitten with her and smarter than everyone else in this movie put together. Bloodshed ensues.

Numbingly stupid even by the subterraneanly low standards of zombie flicks.

On Netflix now. Avoid at all costs.

Is it at least better then that god awful Mina Suvari version with Nick Cannon? That thing was an abomination

Well all the so called "Day of the Dead" movies made in 00's (The awful non sequel to Romero's , The reboot) have been abominations

George Romero's Day of the Dead is the only Day of the Dead to me!

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. NOT the movie (which is great) but the original six-hour mini-series. Also great! Alec Guinness is masterful as George Smiley. It’s an exceeding patient production. One that might be off putting to all but the hardest of hard core into this sort of thing. There’s not much action to speak of. But lots of speaking. Lots of speaking. 90% of the movie is 2-to-3 people in rooms talking. That’s my kinda jam though. This is a dense mystery driven by character and the details are unveiled based on the needs of characters not the plot. It has no interest in holding your hand. Despite the political (and personal, at times) stakes, the voice never really rise. Very British in all the best ways.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

The Talented Mr. Ripley. Another good thriller driven by characters and not plot. It’s devilishly intricate. Matt Damon’s Ripley is a lot of skill but a little bit of luck too and it’s hard not to enjoy being privy to everything he knows as characters discuss what they think is going on. This is still my favorite Damon performance - sad and vulnerable but devious and angry as well. I can’t resist saying that this is the type of complexity I think Damon can do that DiCaprio can’t (or isn’t willing to try). But I’ve ranted enough about that (probably). Stellar supporting work. Possibly Jude Law’s best performance. Philip Seymour Hoffman steals every scene he is in and Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchet are every bit their match. To top it off you have beautiful, elegant direction from Anthony Minghela.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Street Trash. A thoughtful and sneakily powerful treatise on alcoholism and how our country is willing to turn its back on the homeless ... nah, just kidding. People play a football game with a severed wang and a decapitated head gets a nice upskirt peek right before departing this mortal coil. This is gleefully gloriously gross fun. If you like things like this, you’l like this. If you don’t then you won’t. No grey area here.

 

[Osprey]

Nightbreed (Barker, 1990) - Prime has the director's cut, which I hadn't seen before. Considering there was never a sequel made and that it doesn't matter if the ending opened on something the author/director never intended, I think I prefer the original theatrical cut. The director's cut's whole ending is kind of meladramatic and didn't work so well for me. Still, I'm a big fan of the film. It kind of feels cheap and dated (a lot more than Hellraiser, who only had a small fraction of the still (way too) limited budget of Nightbreed), it doesn't really work as a horror film, but as a modest fantasy film, it holds up very nicely. The other, for the cast aside or the deviant (the monster), is here made absolutely acceptable and understandable, something that Barker executes with grace. 7/10

I watched Nightbreed several times on Showtime back in the early 90s. I'm not sure if I was a fan of it, but it sure was different and left an impression. I was reading the other day that Barker thinks that it was a commercial disappointment because people didn't like that the "monsters" were sympathetic or something. 1990 may've been a bad year to make it, since fantasy wasn't too popular at that time. Horror and sci-fi were a lot more "in." If it had been made in early 80s or after Lord of the Rings, maybe it would've been received better. Who knows. Anyways, for most of the 2000s, though, I would often think "what's the name of that movie that I remember so vividly?" and it bothered me that I couldn't remember. I still need to watch it for the first time in 25 years.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Street Trash. A thoughtful and sneakily powerful treatise on alcoholism and how our country is willing to turn its back on the homeless ... nah, just kidding. People play a football game with a severed wang and a decapitated head gets a nice upskirt peek right before departing this mortal coil. This is gleefully gloriously gross fun. If you like things like this, you’l like this. If you don’t then you won’t. No grey area here.

Cool people like Street Trash - no grey area there either.

I watched Nightbreed several times on Showtime back in the early 90s. I'm not sure if I was a fan of it, but it sure was different and left an impression. I was reading the other day that Barker thinks that it was a commercial disappointment because people didn't like that the "monsters" were sympathetic or something. 1990 may've been a bad year to make it, since fantasy wasn't too popular at that time. Horror and sci-fi were a lot more "in." If it had been made in early 80s or after Lord of the Rings, maybe it would've been received better. Who knows. Anyways, for most of the 2000s, though, I would often think "what's the name of that movie that I remember so vividly?" and it bothered me that I couldn't remember. I still need to watch it for the first time in 25 years.

It was more a matter of the studio heads thinking they needed to make the monsters the threat, probably wanting to cash-in on the Cenobites' fame. It was sold as something it wasn't, so a lot of people were offed by the film. Barker also said that the studios didn't want to show the film to critics beforehand to create a buzz because they thought horror fans were too dumb to read.

They kind of sold Midian as an underground version of Hellraiser's inferno.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

What Did Jack Do? (Lynch, 2017) - A fun short that kind of runs a little too long. It's Lynch, and it's no surprise that there's a uniqueness to it, but it quickly wears thin, and the ending is underwhelming (the atmosphere makes you expect something more of a punch, comedic or absurd, but nah, just falls flat at the end). Still, you've got a monkey speaking and saying stuff that feels like clichés you've all heard before - and that in itself is comedy gem. 5/10

Found it so bleh. Would have enjoyed it a lot more if the monkey never opened its mouth.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

No I don't think I knew that, and am I glad he turned it down...

What a very, very different movie that would've been...

Is it at least better then that god awful Mina Suvari version with Nick Cannon? That thing was an abomination

Well all the so called "Day of the Dead" movies made in 00's (The awful non sequel to Romero's , The reboot) have been abominations

George Romero's Day of the Dead is the only Day of the Dead to me!

...I vaguely think I might have seen that one somewhere along the line. Yeah. Yeah, I remember Ving Rhames in another zombie flick besides Dawn. I dunno, it didn't leave much of an impression.

 

[Jussi]

Joker (2019) - 3/10 (Really disliked it)

It's bleak, depressing and awkward. It's highly focused on a repulsive character, and the rest of the characters aren't that likable, either. It didn't make sense to me in various places and seemed forced (like Murray's fascination with him and people mistreating him when they know that he's unstable and owns a gun). It didn't seem to me to have any redeeming qualities, much less 11 worthy of Oscar recognition. Well, OK, Phoenix is pretty good and deserves recognition, but I don't get the other 10, including Best Picture and Best Director. All that the director had to do was let Phoenix do his thing and then garnish the film with slow motion shots, saccharine music and fan service. I will say that it seems like a credible backstory for Joker, but that doesn't feel to me like enough reason for making the film. It just seems to me like it was made because these movies are popular right now, not because the story needed to be told or it had something to say (especially not about mental health), and it's gotten all of these nominations as recognition for it being a $1B-grossing film. I didn't think that I would like it, but I was actually surprised at how much I disliked it.

We discussed it a bit on the movie's own thread but we had some same issues. While I appreciated some of the cinematic areas to give it a 7/10, I feel that might drop the more I think about the issues I had with it. As a credible backstory, it most definitely doesn't work, due to the huge age difference between Arthur/"Joker" and Bruce Wayne. While I think Phoenix is definitely Oscar worthy, some scenes felt a bit "Oscar bait". If we have to take the events as fact, they don't make sense. 8 bullet revolver, co-worker actions/behavior, ambulance driven by "clowns" hitting the police car Arthur was in, Wayne's going to a movie, without any security, on such a volatile time/day. If much/most of it was a lie, then what's the point? If the movie had any message, which it didn't seem to have or couldn't make it's mind up, it was all washed away by the ending.

 

[Chili]

Steamboat Bill Jr (1928) Kind of a standard slapstick movie for most of it until the cyclone scene which is awesome, Keaton performs some impressive dangerous stunts. 3/4

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

The Town. Been meaning to rewatch this one for a while. I was a little lukewarm on it at the time. A fine, but not amazing movie. Certainly well regarded at the time but it seems like the reputation has grown since then. (Maybe it's just the podcasts I listen to or the people I hang around with). So I rewatched it and I have to say ... still not crazy about it. Action is good. Renner is great. I tend not to be a moralist, but Affleck is neither interesting enough or sympathetic enough (or, frankly, cool enough) to earn the getaway and emotional beats the movie gives him. It's unearned in every way.

 

[Osprey]

We discussed it a bit on the movie's own thread but we had some same issues. While I appreciated some of the cinematic areas to give it a 7/10, I feel that might drop the more I think about the issues I had with it. As a credible backstory, it most definitely doesn't work, due to the huge age difference between Arthur/"Joker" and Bruce Wayne. While I think Phoenix is definitely Oscar worthy, some scenes felt a bit "Oscar bait". If we have to take the events as fact, they don't make sense. 8 bullet revolver, co-worker actions/behavior, ambulance driven by "clowns" hitting the police car Arthur was in, Wayne's going to a movie, without any security, on such a volatile time/day. If much/most of it was a lie, then what's the point? If the movie had any message, which it didn't seem to have or couldn't make it's mind up, it was all washed away by the ending.

When I said that it seemed like a credible backstory to me, I meant it only in regards to character development. Why and how he turned into Joker felt somewhat believable. It's not like he was just a regular guy who turned into a psycho by the end. He was already far from stable at the start, so it was easier to buy that what happened to him might push him over the edge. I agree that the age difference is a big problem when you try to fit it into the franchise and that the story has lots of other credibility issues, though.