Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Spring 2021 Edition

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Yes. By some margin.

At least Cold Pursuit was based on a fun movie, In Order of Disappearance.

Didn't know and haven't seen that!

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Finally watched the Godzilla 2019 film in prep for Godzilla vs Kong.

Don't get me wrong, it was dumb as hell, but it was the right kind of dumb as hell. As someone that loved the Toho Godzilla films as a kid, I was grinning like a moron through most of it.

Thumbs up.

 

[Osprey]

Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988) - 5/10

A private dick (Jay Richardson) risks life and limb to rescue a runaway girl (Linnea Quigley) from a cult of chainsaw-worshipping prostitutes. Naturally, their pimp/leader is played by Gunnar Hansen from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It's nice to think that ol' Leatherface eventually put down his chainsaw and moved out of his parents' house to make a more respectable living in the big city and pass the torch to a new generation. He even hired all women, though the lack of racial diversity still dates the film. As our hero exposes them, he narrates all of his thoughts as detectives in film noirs tend to do. He also makes lots of bad puns (like about the hookers charging an arm and a leg) to take the edge off of the serious subject matter. It's pretty low budget and could've been better, but it delivers on its title and that counts for something. You wouldn't rent this and expect Promising Young Woman. It's just too bad that its creators never delivered on the sequel teased at the end, Student Chainsaw Nurses.

----------------

Frankenhooker (1990) - 6/10

After a tragic birthday party lawnmower accident leaves his girlfriend (Patty Mullen) severely dismembered, a medical school dropout (James Lorinz) goes street shopping for the parts to rebuild her... better, stronger, sexier. Based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, this adaptation includes all of the ingredients missing in the original story: romance, humor and boobs. I particularly enjoyed one more than the others. I'm talking about the dark humor, which was better than I was expecting. At one point, the young man pours his feelings out to his mom, telling her that he's afraid that he's going down an amoral path, losing the ability to distinguish right from wrong and descending into madness. With motherly concern written all over her face, she replies, "Do you want a sandwich?" I appreciated the blend of humor and pathos. I also admired the mise en scène in the seedy motel room when he was surrounded by hooker body parts, and the reflexivity of the denouement was equally magnifique. I would expect nothing less from the auteur responsible for such classics as Basket Case and Brain Damage. It also reminded me a lot of Bride of Re-Animator, which was released the same year. Directors Frank Henenlotter and Brian Yuzna must've been hanging out and on the same substance. It was more fun than I was expecting. If you rent a hooker horror for the evening, I suggest throwing your money at this one.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

If you rent a hooker horror for the evening, I suggest throwing your money at this one.

I don't remember much of Frankenhooker, should really see it again, but I'm with you about Henenlotter and Yuzna, very fun guys.

As for hooker horror, have a grab of this one - certainly top-5 in the worst films I've seen:

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (Farrands, 2013) - This is 400 minutes long, and anecdotical at best. It's still kind of fun, and if you're a fan of the series (and not necessarily of much of the movies), it's a way to go through them without actually watching them again. It's impressive how many of the involved crews and actors (no matter how small the part) they managed to get into this. Only the too-big-for-this-crowd usual suspects are missing, and weirdly enough, Steve Miner. It's cool to see how much fun everybody had making these films, and how most of them are still proud of being part of them (but to be honest, there's quite a few of these people that look as dumb as the characters they were playing - and it's kind of disappointing to witness the absence of ambition and the very limited comprehension of the material that the creators had). 4/10

 

[ProstheticConscience]

And now for something completely different...

Space Sweepers

with Korean people. And various other ethnic groups who can all understand each other no matter what language they speak a la Han Solo and Chewbacca.

Earth 2092...crapsack planet. Everyone still on the surface yearns to be a citizen of (whatever) offworld space station network in orbit or Mars. There's a bustling economy of sweeping up space junk and selling it to the highest bidder to eke out a living...and the top dogs fly the good ship Victory. Kim Tae-ho is the main character, and he's the pilot who's saving up money to recover the body of his daughter in orbit. Park is the heavily tattooed guy toiling away in the horrible steampunk nightmare of an engine room who used to head a drug cartel on Earth...but somehow downsized. Babs is the transgender android who's saving up for a cute girly latex exterior, and they all follow Captain Jang, the twenty-something chick who used to something something. Together they stumble into a cosmic mess involving a cute little girl (who may or may not be a robot or a nuclear bomb), a megalomaniac who wants to destroy Earth and colonize Mars, a shadowy terrorist group, killer robots, other stuff, etc etc etc. Stuff happens.

The first Korean mega sci-fi hit, it hits a few of the expected boxes, but there's a fair bit lost in translation. The killer pirates instantly become piles of sentimental goo the second a vulnerable child shows up, the Big Bad Guy's plan makes even less sense than usual (and you're waiting for the big reveal of his obvious weakness that never comes), the world-building doesn't quite get there, and the subtitles are annoyingly quite often wrong on who's speaking what language. That last one might be on Netflix, though. Bizarre tonal shifts abound. Is it a gritty opus a la Blade Runner, or a family-friendly romp like Lego Guardians of the Galaxy? Depends where you are.

Kinda reminds me of an early 2000's Hyundai; the Koreans have *almost* got it, they're getting better and have come a long way in the last couple of decades...but there's still some rough edges to sand off. Zombies and horror they've got. Sci-fi epics? Still getting there.

On Netflix.

There's no Jar Jar...so there's that!

 

[Pink Mist]

Seven Samurai (1954) directed by Akira Kurosawa

When bandits promise to raid a village of their crops, the villagers hire a gang of seven samurai for protection against the raiding bandits. Led by the elderly and honorable samurai Kambei Shimada (Takashi Shimura) who is the brains behind their plans, and includes a cast of ragtag samurai including the temperamental Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune) who is always on edge or clowning around. Revisiting this old favourite of mine after many years – this was probably the first film that got me into foreign films – and it holds up well and its 3+ hours breeze by and feels like a two-hour movie. Kurosawa is a master of his craft and its no wonder why this ensemble movie has been so influential (and plagiarized) in other movies and TV (most obvious examples being The Magnificent Seven and A Bug’s Life). In addition to its importance in cinematic history, it’s also just a damn fun and entertaining movie.

 

[nameless1]

Godzilla vs. Kong is surprisingly good. I had very little expectation when I popped it up, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Past movies place too much attention and screentime on the frivolous human characters that do absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things, and the true attractions, the eponymous monsters, are little more than side characters, especially in the Godzilla series. This time, the focus is actually on the monsters, and the fights are longer and better than before.

Spoiler

I really liked the naval battle, and finally there is a battle in a metropolis with tons of skyscrapers, a classic setting in past Godzilla movies.

This is what fans truly want, and after so many attempts, the studio finally delivered. I doubt this will be the end of the revamped monsterverse, despite what is claimed, but even if it is true, this is a great way to end it.

I have it at 6.5/10. Of course, it is just mindless entertainment, but it is an absolute joyride, and I had a lot of fun with it.

 

[Osprey]

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) - 3/10 (Really disliked it)

I haven't been a fan of the recent films in either series, so I didn't expect to like this one, but I was hopeful that it would surprise me. Unfortunately, it felt formulaic and familiar to me in the worst Hollywood ways. The characters are severely underdeveloped, the dialogue is dumb (and delivered in American accents by mostly non-American actors) and the thin plot has too many things that have little to no explanation and felt like excuses for one reason or another. For one, there's an eight-year-old girl who's inexplicably the only person who can communicate with Kong via sign language. Her mother even has to sign to her so that she can pass it along to him. I guess that the writers wanted a character to have a special bond with Kong for emotional weight and needed to have a kid for the sake of younger viewers, put the two together and didn't care whether they explained it or not. Similarly, Millie Bobby Brown is clearly in the movie only to appeal to the teen demographic. The criticism that her character doesn't do anything is accurate, and her companions don't do much, either. Their whole subplot seems to exist only to add comedy and show us who the bad guys really are. It reminded me a little of the Canto Bight subplot in The Last Jedi, except that this one lasts almost the whole film. It was disappointing every time that the action cut away from the monsters to follow them doing things that weren't nearly as interesting or seemingly relevant. I had more issues than just those, but I don't want to spoil plot points by going into detail.

On a more positive note, I thought that the battles were quite good and I liked the settings that they take place in. All of them except for one occur in the daytime, so you can actually see what's going on, and the one that takes place at night is fairly well lit. That was nice, but the entertainment of those 5 or so battles couldn't make up for the rest. I can appreciate mindless entertainment, just not when it's entertaining for a combined 20 minutes and mindless for the rest. Even though they're monster movies, I think that they could be better if the bar were set higher.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Underwater

with K-Stew, Vincent Cassel, other people, and TJ Miller. "Oh boy, TJ Miller's in this! Things are looking up!" -- said no one ever.

K-Stew hitches up her britches and heads on down to the bottom of the ocean as Nora, crew member on the world's worst OSHA nightmare; deep-sea drilling rig in the Marianas Trench. She's shaved her head and is morosely brushing her teeth when...SCREAMING RED ALERT!! The ceiling's caving in, bulkheads are slamming shut, the place is coming undone. She manages to find the Captain and wrangle up some survivors, and they hatch a desperate plan to walk across the ocean floor to another drilling site which might still have some escape pods left. Everyone's banged up, bloody and panting...and uh-oh. What caused the system failure? Earthquake? Design flaw? Undiscovered evil critters lurking at the bottom of the sea? Take a guess. Our plucky heroes and also TJ Miller struggle against desperate odds to survive in the oppressive, claustrophobic depths against...things. Stuff happens.

Actually quite a bit better than I had expected for a movie that came out and sunk without a trace. The set design and cinematography evoke Alien quite a bit of the time...only without a compelling monster or characters whose names you can remember or care about whether they live or die. Physics also gets forgotten quite a bit. The escape pods that go shooting up to the surface would kill their occupants more painfully than the mermen critters (ever heard of The Bends?), lots of times people forget how much actual pressure things are under at bottom of the ocean, and...oh yeah. The Boss-level Cthulu guy would have a daily caloric requirement somewhere in the neighbourhood of a Blue Whale, and there's nothing to eat down there.

Oh well, there's a lot worse things to look at for an hour and a half than Kristen Stewart in a bikini.

"OMG...look at TJ's tattoo! He looks like an idiot...and the Russian mob wants him dead now! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!"

 

[Osprey]

Underwater

...

Actually quite a bit better than I had expected for a movie that came out and sunk without a trace.

My thoughts were similar. I think that I gave it a 5/10, which is higher than I thought that I'd give a film starring Kristen Stewart. A large part of it was that it was just nice to get an underwater disaster/alien film with modern sets and special effects. Films in that sub-genre are few and far between and I'm rather fond of the spate of late 80s ones (The Abyss, DeepStar Six and Leviathan), but their flooding effects were relatively simplistic (lots of spraying water and slowly rising levels). This one made the water seem more destructive and dangerous. The story, characters and ultimate threat may not have been very good or interesting, but the sets and effects (at least the practical ones) were nice to look at.

 

[sdf]

I've run out of ideas about the name of this thread

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Donnie Darko (2001) - It veers into stroke movie for sensitive, angsty white boy by moments as well as cleveritis but it's certainly got originality, a voice of its own and a scope/ambition that I respect. It has a lot going for it visually as well. But boy did I find Jake Gyllenhall's performance terrible. It has also has a bit of a choppy pacing and some important details in relation to the narrative fall flat because they're not well explored (such as Roberta Sparrow's book). Still, I always appreciate watching somebody swing for the fences. On a somewhat unrelated note - and its been talked/written about before like in the 90s but kind of calmed itself down in the aughts before revving back up with the rise of awful Twitter - but I'm so, so over ironic self-awareness/too cool for school witty takes/films and all that stuff. It's always nice and heart-warming to see somebody swinging for the fences. There's nothing courageous or admirable about common wit and irony. I'm really starting to hate any sort of wit that doesn't have to do with (bad) puns and wordplay.

 

[OzzyFan]

Godzilla vs Kong (2021)
2.70 out of 4stars

A gloriously fully realized kaiju action spectacular and even the mediocre downtime from that had some decent visuals and couple intriguing ideas(not fully realized or developed at all, but noteworthy).

 

[Puck]

I'll throw in my 2 cents on Godzilla vs Kong. The CGI effects were great, the battle scenes very entertaining. The storyline was confusing though and stupid. The writers deserve a Razzie Award for that mess. That was obviously written by committee, everyone throwing in their ideas, spin the wheel and see what comes out. Luckily nobody will care about the human elements, machinations and sub-plots. Everyone will want to see the Titans go at it. And they get a third Mechano-Godzilla thrown in for good measure. Good nuff.

In retrospect, the best in the series was Kong: Skull Island IMHO

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Collateral Damage (Davis, 2002) - It tries to give Arnold's character some pathos for him to work with, and to somewhat flesh out the villains a little - it even goes for a little twist at the end. Still, it's pretty boring, and stiff acting sinks the whole thing (Koteas and Leguizamo are charismatic enough to make their minor characters acceptable, but I really can't stand Cliff Curtis - Arnold is Arnold, and Francesca Neri well... she was in Captain America). 2.5/10

 

[ProstheticConscience]

The History of Future Folk

with people. I guess...

Once upon a time, there was a planet called Hondo, which was threatened with destruction by a massive rogue comet. So they sent their finest warrior General Trius to a simple planet called Earth with a deadly biotoxin to wipe out the indigenous population so the good people of Hondo had somewhere to go...but then he heard music. Never before had his people heard anything like it...so he put aside his mission to marry a cute Earth chick and play the banjo on open mic night at Dee Snider's bar in Brooklyn. Years later, Hondo sends an assassin to kill him and get the mission back on track, but he himself falls under the spell of Earth music. Together, General Trius and the Mighty Kevin form a folk duo, singing songs about their home planet of Hondo for the locals. Hondo! Trius' marriage suffers when the cops show up, however. Kevin doesn't exactly keep a low profile on Earth...and oh yeah. The good folks on Hondo still have to deal with a comet that's going to destroy their world. Someone else is on the way, and he doesn't have an affinity for folk music. Trouble ensues.

Easily the most entertaining movie I've seen in months. Silly, funny, sweet and genuinely nice. Yeah. These guys are *nice* aliens. Don't get too many of those these days. And don't let the cheap plastic buckets on their heads fool you, the Hondonians are definitely technologically superior. Just be glad they never invented the banjo or else we'd all be dead right now.

On Netflix.

"You pathetic Earthlings are doomed! Also, don't forget our daily special; pints of draft for $3 before 10, and the hot wings are 2 for 1!"

 

[OzzyFan]

Host (2020)
2.50 out of 4stars

"Six friends hire a medium to hold a seance via Zoom during lockdown, but they get far more than they bargained for as things quickly go wrong. When an evil spirit starts invading their homes, they begin to realize they might not survive the night"

Pretty much Paranormal Activity meets Zoom chat, UK edition. You get exactly what you come for, albeit after a very annoying first 5-10mins of group chat greetings and occasional talking over one another. At a short 57minutes, it's decent fun that you can breeze through if the premise interests you.

This is Spinal Tap
3.00 out of 4stars

Always a pleasure. Hard Rock Music Satire Mockumentary with lots of giggles throughout.

 

[Pink Mist]

The Magnificent Seven (1960) directed by John Sturges

When their small Mexican village is raided by a group of bandits led by Eli Wallach, the town hires a group of gunmen to protect them from their next raid. The gunmen are the magnificent seven, led by Chris Adams (Yul Brynner) and his second in command Vin (Steve McQueen). Hard not to compare this film to Seven Samurai since it’s a beat for beat remake of the Japanese original (although the 3rd act is slightly different), but the film’s Western locale does enough to differentiate it from the original. Brynner dominates the screen as the leader of the group, but James Coburn is the real star as a silent but formidable gun slinger, akin to the type Clint Eastwood would personify in later westerns. Horst Buchholz is irritating as he does a poor imitation of Toshiro Mifune’s iconic role. The Magnificent Seven is a dependable and well crafted Western and a good re-imagination of the Seven Samurai.

 

[Tkachuk4MVP]

Collateral Damage (Davis, 2002) - It tries to give Arnold's character some pathos for him to work with, and to somewhat flesh out the villains a little - it even goes for a little twist at the end. Still, it's pretty boring, and stiff acting sinks the whole thing (Koteas and Leguizamo are charismatic enough to make their minor characters acceptable, but I really can't stand Cliff Curtis - Arnold is Arnold, and Francesca Neri well... she was in Captain America). 2.5/10

As a huge Arnold fan, his action films got exponentially worse after True Lies, and this was no exception.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

The House That Jack Built (Von trier, 2018) - There's so much material in this that I don't really know by which end I should try to read it. It's probably the LVT film I enjoyed less (I haven't seen The Boss of it All), but it might just be his most complex. Like the nursery rhyme, it's built on cumulative structure that could go on endlessly (Jack says he chose the incidents randomly) without us knowing anything about the house that was built - but all of that is merely conversation between Virgil and the serial killer, quickly identified as unreliable narrator. The reflexive strategy goes beyond the film at hand and expends to a confused discourse about art (the whole LVT filmography makes an appearance). Virgil is straight up from Dante's Inferno, but played by Bruno Ganz, he is also a little bit of Faust and of Hitler. Past the common mysoginist and provocateur LVT grounds, the intention is not really clear, but the descent (the last part of the film) was for me reminiscent of the Sad Satan game's aura: it feels like it's trying to make you physically sick, with some stroboscopic effect, but mainly with noise (the use of real images - mass graves for example - and allusions to real serial killers throughout the film went that way too, just like the reference to the Alabama Song). 6.5/10

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Runaway Jury (2003) - 6.5/10

A cast including Gene Hackman in his last notable film alongside Hoffman/Cusack/Weisz/Piven. I think it's a screenplay that's better on paper than on film, there is such a thing as too much of a rollercoaster which becomes apparent when you compact it into a 2 hour film that gets a bit too farfetched at times and makes inexplicable use of some cinematography you'd associate with a Jason Bourne film rather than a courtroom thriller.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

(and plagiarized) in other movies and TV (most obvious examples being The Magnificent Seven

For the sake of clarity, TM7 was an intentional remake of 7S for Western audiences, with the producers of TM7 buying those rights from Toho Studios. There have been legal battles over whether it was Toho's to sell (spoiler: no)

 

[OzzyFan]

Re-Animator
2.90 out of 4stars

80's style sci-fi visual horror and dark humor mixed so well about bringing the dead back to life.

 

[kihei]

The House That Jack Built (Von trier, 2018) - 6.5/10

You are infinitely more generous than I was. I just thought this movie was self-indulgent and plug ugly.