Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate It

[Arizonan God]

Her (2013, dir: Spike Jonze)

I'm really split on this one. It's design, cinematography, and general sense of place and atmosphere is excellent. I'm a sucker for near future sci-fi like this. But at it's core, it's a romance, and that part of the film really didn't connect with me, and left me a bit bored and uninterested in the final act. It is in many ways beautiful, but it hasn't resonated with me on an emotional level. Not my favourite Joaquin Phoenix either, to be honest. I never bought into his character, Theodore, like the movie wanted me to.

Either a 5 or a 6, haven't decided.

 

[Osprey]

Her (2013, dir: Spike Jonze)

I'm really split on this one. It's design, cinematography, and general sense of place and atmosphere is excellent. I'm a sucker for near future sci-fi like this. But at it's core, it's a romance, and that part of the film really didn't connect with me, and left me a bit bored and uninterested in the final act. It is in many ways beautiful, but it hasn't resonated with me on an emotional level. Not my favourite Joaquin Phoenix either, to be honest. I never bought into his character, Theodore, like the movie wanted me to.

Either a 5 or a 6, haven't decided.

My feelings on the film were similar and I'd give it a 5 on my personal scale that I adapted from Netflix's scale:

1: Trash
2: Hated it
3: Greatly disliked it
4: Disliked it
5: Didn't like or dislike it
6: Liked it
7: Really liked it
8: Loved it
9: Really loved it
10: Perfect

I'm just sharing that in case others care to make use of it or adapt it. It makes it pretty easy for me to come up with a score, since it's usually not hard to decide what my level of enjoyment was and, then, I just convert that to a number. Most of my scores do end up being somewhere around the middle of the scale and I rarely get close to either extreme, but maybe that's an accurate reflection of films, in general, where even the worst tend to have a few redeeming characteristics and even the best tend to have some faults.

 

[Arizonan God]

My feelings on the film were similar and I'd give it a 5 on my personal scale that I adapted from Netflix's scale:

1: Trash
2: Hated it
3: Greatly disliked it
4: Disliked it
5: Didn't like or dislike it
6: Liked it
7: Really liked it
8: Loved it
9: Really loved it
10: Perfect

I'm just sharing that in case others care to make use of it or adapt it. It makes it pretty easy for me to come up with a score, since it's usually not hard to decide what my level of enjoyment was and, then, I just convert that to a number. Most of my scores do end up being somewhere around the middle of the scale and I rarely get close to either extreme, but maybe that's an accurate reflection of films, in general, where even the worst tend to have a few redeeming characteristics and even the best tend to have some faults.

Similar to what I feel my number ratings correlate to. I find myself going to 6 and 7 a lot, and wonder if I'm not critical enough. I suspect there is some selection bias, in that I generally seek out movies I think I'll enjoy.

 

[Shareefruck]

1: Trash
2: Hated it
3: Greatly disliked it
4: Disliked it
5: Didn't like or dislike it
6: Liked it
7: Really liked it
8: Loved it
9: Really loved it
10: Perfect

The reason I always stay away from that normal type of rating system is because there are so many different ratings given for things that are disliked, that are basically never used because you don't seek out bad movies, and that I never have any interest in differentiating between anyways. Finding something to be trash, hating it, greatly disliking it, and disliking it are all pretty much the same thing to me, in practice.

 

[Osprey]

Similar to what I feel my number ratings correlate to. I find myself going to 6 and 7 a lot, and wonder if I'm not critical enough. I suspect there is some selection bias, in that I generally seek out movies I think I'll enjoy.

Yeah, I gave the new Death Wish a 6 the other day and I wondered if I was being too generous, but I can't deny that I sort of enjoyed it in a guilty pleasure sort of way, and that corresponds to a 6 on my scale, so that's what I had to give it. The only reason that I watched it in the first place is that its star, its budget and the fact that it had a wide release in theaters suggested that it had the potential to be a 6. If it didn't have those, it would've most likely been a 3-5 film that I wouldn't have bothered with, so the selection bias is real. I don't really care if I give most movies a 5 or 6, though, since my reviews that accompany those ratings are what matter. I'd actually prefer to not give a rating at all and just let my words speak for my thoughts, but the thread title says "and Rate It," so I play along.

The reason I always stay away from that normal type of rating system is because there are so many different ratings given for things that are disliked, that are basically never used because you don't seek out bad movies, and that I never have any interest in differentiating between anyways. Finding something to be trash, hating it, greatly disliking it, and disliking it are all pretty much the same thing to me, in practice.

I see that you use an 11-point system, similar to me, just weighted differently. Instead of putting your neutral rating in the center of your scale, like I do, with my 5/10, you put it at 1.5/5. I understand not caring to differentiate too many levels of dislike, but the flip side is that you have more levels of like. You appear to have Positive, Good, Very Good, Great, Flawless, Brilliant and Masterpiece. Maybe you can easily differentiate between them, but that's a little much for me, especially when it comes to deciding which of the last four to put a film in. If that works for you, though, that's fine. I, personally, am no better or worse at distinguishing between grades of dislike than like and prefer a symmetric scale. In fact, it's always bugged me that educational scales are weighted such that anything under 60% counts the same as 0%. That'd be like having a film rating scale where 1 through 5 all translate to Terrible; hah.

 

[Shareefruck]

I see that you use an 11-point system, similar to me, just weighted differently. Instead of putting your neutral rating in the center of your scale, like I do, with my 5/10, you put it at 1.5/5. I understand not caring to differentiate too many levels of dislike, but the flip side is that you have more levels of like. You appear to have Positive, Good, Very Good, Great, Flawless, Brilliant and Masterpiece. Maybe you can easily differentiate between them, but that's a little much for me, especially when it comes to deciding which of the last four to put a film in. If that works for you, though, that's fine. I, personally, am no better or worse at distinguishing between grades of dislike than like and prefer a symmetric scale. In fact, it's always bugged me that educational scales are weighted such that anything under 60% counts the same as 0%. Hah.

Yeah, exactly, that's kind of my issue with most rating systems in general. It's like.... wait, all of the good students are differentiated between 75-100%? Even though some of them are just putting in a normal amount of effort, others are trying to do everything in a mistake-free way, and a few are outright geniuses who, logically, would shatter the scale completely? My attitude is more like... if anything under 60 is unacceptable and not really worth considering, then just make that the bottom and start the scale there. I feel like there are just so many degrees of difference between things that are strong solid efforts and things that are the best I've ever experienced. Feels off to me to have to cram them so closely together.

Just a random tangential thought, not trying to impose or anything.

 

[Mario Lemieux fan 66]

The Edge of Heaven : 7.3/10

Solo: A Star Wars Story: 6.8/1o

 

[Filatov2Kovalev2Bonk]

I fairly enjoyed "Her", it had great cinematography and quite relatable to the our current world and all that.
It was referenced in Blade Runner 2049, which was a nice nod.

Saw Deadpool 2, give it a 7 or so. Quite good but I kept wanting Firefatty, err...Firefist to get an extra value meal to calm him down, and the orphanage head reminded me of Ben Stein for some reason, so I was expecting Jimmy Kimmel or Nancy Pimental to show up as backup. Some nice barbs and good action though, and the end credits were great, especially the Green Lantern reference, haha.

 

[cupcrazyman]

Just watched Meatballs & it is one of my fav Bill Murray movies.

10/10

 

[Mr Plow]

Ocean's 8

Anne Hathaway was the lone bright spot in a rather bland movie. It was at inoffensive as it was noteworthy. I imagine it'll be a cable mainstay for the one or two scenes that are actually worth rewatching. Oh and I thought the insurance guy played by that talk show host was a fun character too, even if his character didn't make any sense.

5/10 movie but Hathaway singlehandedly bumps it up to a 6/10.

 

[kihei]

No French Open, no Stanley Cup, no NBA finals, World Cup not here yet, nothing on. Woe is me. So I made up a list of my faves for the 2010 decade:

1.) Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Weerasethakul, Thailand
2.) The Assassin, Hou, Taiwan
3.) Loveless, Zvyagintsev, Russia
4.) Amour, Haneke, France
5.) Gravity, Cuaron, Mexico/US
6.) Once upon a Time in Anatolia, Ceylan, Turkey
7.) A Simple Life, Hui, Hong Kong
8.) Mommy, Dolan, Canada
9.) The Death of Louis XIV, Serra, Spain
10.) Victoria, Schipper, Germany

HM: Moonlight; Norwegian Wood; Like Father, Like Son; Somewhere; Goodbye to Language; Upstream Color

By my standards, that is an absolutely great decade so far.

 

[Shareefruck]

After some time letting Loveless sink in, I think I'm starting to feel comfortable about the idea of it actually inching into my all time favorites...... Which is a feeling I generally don't get with these yearly favorites. It's holding up really really well in my mind.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Blame!

Post-apocalyptic anime about a village full of depressed anime people in white helmets called "Electro-Fishers" eke out a bleak existence in the ruins of a huge, automated city. Once upon a long ago time, the city was under human control but somewhere along the line, they lost the ability to communicate and the city activated the trusty KILL ALL HUMANS sci-fi trope. Thousands of years later, the city has grown out of control and sends scuttling, blank-faced mannequins to slay any intruders. A few kids from the village have taken some Electro-Fisher gear to hopefully find some food but run across the system's defenses...and are saved by a mysterious stranger who's packing a sidearm with the punch of an anti-aircraft battery. Turns out, he's from levels far below and he's trying to find people with the "neck terminal" gene to hopefully bring the city back under human control. The city, of course, isn't particularly keen on the idea. Flashy anime explosions and girls with eyes like dinner plates ensue.

Meh. Was sitting in my Netflix queue forever and just wanted to get rid of it one way or the other. Can't say it's proving to be memorable in any way, shape or form.

 

[silkyjohnson50]

No French Open, no Stanley Cup, no NBA finals, World Cup not here yet, nothing on. Woe is me. So I made up a list of my faves for the 2010 decade:

1.) Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Weerasethakul, Thailand
2.) The Assassin, Hou, Taiwan
3.) Loveless, Zvyagintsev, Russia
4.) Amour, Haneke, France
5.) Gravity, Cuaron, Mexico/US
6.) Once upon a Time in Anatolia, Ceylan, Turkey
7.) A Simple Life, Hui, Hong Kong
8.) Mommy, Dolan, Canada
9.) The Death of Louis XIV, Serra, Spain
10.) Victoria, Schipper, Germany

HM: Moonlight; Norwegian Wood; Like Father, Like Son; Somewhere; Goodbye to Language; Upstream Color

By my standards, that is an absolutely great decade so far.

Do you have easy access of your review of Gravity? Interested to read it.

 

[Shareefruck]

We need an easy-to-search-and-explore Kihei review database, honestly-- it would be so useful.

 

[kihei]

Let the Sunshine In (2018) Directed by Clare Denis 5C

No question: Let the Sunshine In, a character study of a 50- something woman trying to find love and fulfillment but failing, is a polished piece of direction with a commanding performance by Juliette Binoche. It even has a witty ending with Gerard Depardieu depicting a fortune teller of all things (he's really good at it). But, jesus, is this movie a tedious thing to sit through. Even by French standards, it is extremely talky. And despite Binoche's best efforts, which are truly considerable, her character Isabelle is just not that interesting nor are the men that she meets along the way. Argentine director Sebastien Leilo covers roughly the same general territory in 2013's Gloria, a far better film, and gets a brilliant performance from his lead actress Paulina Garcia in the process. Let the Sunshine In is the sort of movie that will appeal to some critics but very few movie goers. Not that that's by definition a bad thing, but it is in this case.

subtitles

 

[Nalens Oga]

Philadelphia (1993) - 8/10

Directed by the same guy who did Silence of The Lambs, Demme, but this is an emotional courtroom drama featuring Hanks/Denzel. It's really strange tbh...this director I feel rushed the endings in both. It's certainly no My Cousin Vinny in terms of how satisfying the case resolution is. The courtroom scenes start really well but it's fairly grounded so they don't have that same edge-of-your-seat appeal that other courtroom dramas had. Also, I'm not a Bruce Springstein fan but the song at the beginning of this film is phenomenal, great 90s sound:

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Oh, and I finally saw that latest Star Trek movie a couple of weeks ago. It was called...Star Trek something. Idris Elba was in it under heavy makeup, they found some black and white warrior chick, and blew up the bad guys with the power of the Beastie Boys.

Sucked. It makes The Last Jedi look like Citizen Kane by comparison.

 

[kihei]

Hotel Artemis (2018) Directed by Drew Pearce 6A

Set exactly ten years in the future in an LA rioting over water shortages, Hotel Artemis is the name of a refuge for criminals and scoundrels with an old lady proprietress called Nurse (Jody Foster with effective makeup) who provides not only shelter for dues-paying members but also the odd piece of major or minor surgery, depending on the circumstances. Various bad guys and gals drop into the establishment for one reason or another. Eventually some interesting shit happens, though anything approaching a story never really appears. But the colourful cast makes that no particular problem. It's a long list: Jeff Goldblum (acting like some Batman nemesis), Stanley K. Brown, Dave Bautista, an intense Zachary Quinto, a ferocious Sofie Boutella, and so on. As they bump up against one another in various combinations, violence, of course, occurs. The script is reasonably fresh; the staging is suitably and imaginatively scuzzy; and the whole enterprise has a certain sustained off-kilter style that I found pleasing. A lot of people don't seem to like this movie, but there are far worse ways of killing 93 minutes. But check out these varying opinions on Metacritic:

100 points:
"As a first-time director, Pearce manages something difficult. He creates a tone that acknowledges absurdity, but also consequences. He finds an edge that’s extreme, that’s weird, that’s satirical and that goes right to the edge of farce, and yet the movie is at all points as involving as an intense drama."

San Francisco Chronicle - Mick LaSalle


0 points
"Moronic drivel that truly qualifies as the worst movie of the year, it sinks amateurish moviemaking aimed at audiences with no taste to an alarming new low."

Observer - Rex Reed

 

[Puck]

Does anyone still listen to Rex Reed? I thought he was dead.

 

[Led Zappa]

Sounds like my kind of movie.

 

[Puck]

Sounds like my kind of movie.

Same here. I saw a trailer and it reminded me of the hotel in John Wick.

p.s. Vulture's review is kind of similar to kihei's
http://www.vulture.com/2018/06/hotel-artemis-review.html

 

[kihei]

Do you have easy access of your review of Gravity? Interested to read it.

Took a while to find the damn thing. I've included a second comment that actually goes into more detain than I did in my original review:

Gravity (2013), directed by Alfons Cuaron: A trio of astronauts lives are imperiled when a disaster happens in space. That's all you need to know about the plot. I thought this was a phenomenal entertainment, more impressive than any other movie set in space that I have ever seen, save one. The visuals are beyond description, and the tension and suspense that the film generates led to a couple of outright gasps in the theatre. Not since 2001: A Space Odyssey, the "one" previously alluded to, has science fiction looked this good. The narrative does what it needs to do, and I suppose some people will have a field day picking at little details that they find implausible. Let them go toss their lizards. What the movie sets out to do it accomplishes in spectacular fashion. Both Bullock and Clooney are just fine, but it really isn't an actor's movie. It is a movie about a situation, and few situations in film history have ever been presented more vividly. Pure entertainment at a very high level (and, no, for once the pun is not intended).

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

Later comment on Gravity in response to an unknown poster:

Actually I think this summary and the longer review that you posted on the page are among the most thoughtful and measured responses to the film that I have read. I agree that the movie "pushes the boundaries of technical innovation and suspense," that it's story is serviceable, not "robust," and that it is one hell of a "popcorn thrill ride." However, I also do believe that the movie is of true "best picture"-caliber, indeed a work of art of no small order.

Yes, the technical achievement is immense, but it is used in service of the film as a whole. And that edge-of-one's-seat suspense doesn't happen by itself, it happens because of Cuaron's control of the medium. On the Gravity page, you mention perceptively that the movie feels like a smaller film, not like an epic. I agree with that entirely--indeed, it is one of the many things that I admire about the film. As I wrote in my initial review, it is a movie about a very specific situation. What makes it a work of art for me is how convincingly Cuaron presents that situation. He does an amazing job of making the audience feel the nightmarish terror of being in the position that Bullock and Clooney find themselves. I don't want or need to know more about the astronauts; more back story would only have distracted me from the movie's focus and from its relentless economy, two of its strongest features. Both astronauts are human and particular enough--how they will or will not survive is the only concern that gripped me.

What makes the movie seem so impressive to me is that Cuaron reduces everything about that situation to a bare minimum of essentials and then uses his incredible technical know-how to create a reality in space for viewers that approximates something of what that experience actually must feel like. This involves not just the mind-blowing special effects, but writing, editing, filming, pacing his work, and working with his actors in extraordinary circumstances where they often had no clue what the final product was that they were contributing to. To me anyway, the end result is virtually seamless--the artist has become invisible in his work. Technical innovation and spectacular effects are important components but without Cuaron's artistry, this movie would not be the achievement that I think it is.

 

[Shareefruck]

Definitely the film in your top 10 that I most disagree with. I still find the spectacle/technical impressiveness of the experience ultimately pretty superficial/hollow, the writing/acting really hokey and annoying (I've disliked Sandra Bullock in basically everything I've seen), and I can't so easily dismiss the fact that the science is so thoughtless/implausible that it can be pointed out with just half-hearted 5th grade knowledge, which kind of shattered my suspension of belief. For me, it kind of feels like a more technically ground-breaking version of one of those 4D roller-coaster-y simulation rides that you'd encounter at a fancy science museum, except without the education.

I was kind of impressionable about it and able to be caught up in the spectacle the first time (but even at its best, it was still just middle-of-the-pack for me that year), but it's one of those things that really doesn't hold up and gets worse and worse on subsequent re-watches for me.

 

[kihei]

Gravity was an almost magical experience for me and a superb use of the medium. There is a limit to the number of times that I want to see it (which shouldn't be said for any truly great movie). And I would want to see the film on state-of-the-art 3D projection, too. Ultimately those may be mitigating factors; but, right now, I still think it's the bees' knees.