Rate the Last Movie You Saw

[WestRider]

Red Dragon: Really quite a good adaptation of the book, as best I can recall. It certainly hit all the beats I remember from when I read it something like 13 years ago. It isn't as good of a medium for this story, because the book can take longer to slowly crank up the tension, but it's still good, and probably about as good of a movie as could be made from that book. And, I mean, it's got Anthony Hopkins and Edward Norton in the two main roles, so it's hard to go wrong there. Altho, that said, it's weird seeing someone besides Hugh Dancy playing Will Graham. For some reason, I can interchange Hopkins and Mikkelsen as Lector, but not the other two as Graham.

[Yarbicus]

On 6/9/2018 at 3:43 PM, WestRider said:

Red Dragon: Really quite a good adaptation of the book, as best I can recall. It certainly hit all the beats I remember from when I read it something like 13 years ago. It isn't as good of a medium for this story, because the book can take longer to slowly crank up the tension, but it's still good, and probably about as good of a movie as could be made from that book. And, I mean, it's got Anthony Hopkins and Edward Norton in the two main roles, so it's hard to go wrong there. Altho, that said, it's weird seeing someone besides Hugh Dancy playing Will Graham. For some reason, I can interchange Hopkins and Mikkelsen as Lector, but not the other two as Graham.

This really confused me until I remembered that the first film version was called Manhunter.

[andozane]

On 5/25/2018 at 6:31 AM, shmitty said:

Solo - Really fun.   Not amazing or groundbreaking, but as fun as any unnecessary prequel could be.  By the end you buy in to the new guy being Han and Donald Glover absolutely nails Lando.

OK, so went to see Solo last night.  To be honest, from the announcement of this movie being made I was negative on it.  I thought this was just a dumb idea for a movie.  I want new stories, not the old characters...

That being said...Solo was a damned fine Star Wars movie.  So much better than the Last Jedi...leaps and bounds.  It is a great adventure story set in the Star Wars universe.  Loved it.

7.5 / 10 if not a tad higher...

[Brother Glacius]

Solo has definitely been hurt by disgruntled SW fans and bad press of late director change. Lets face it, Fanbois are dicks and they give a bad name to true fans.

[Duckman]

<shrug>

Solo was not memorable.  It's hard to find anything in it memorable enough to quote.  It's not a bad movie or anything...  It's just pablum.

Alden did an ok job trying to reprise the role but let's face it...  He's trying to fill the shoes of arguably one of the top 10 actors of the last 50 years.  He obviously studied the mannerisms and he did well with those but that was not the Han Solo who shot first in the cantina in Mos Eisley.  The whole point of the first trilogy was that the characters grew and the problem with everything they have tried to do since then is that they hold up these noble ideals of the characters at the end of the first trilogy which ends up destroying any sense that the characters grew at all and this movie is no different.  (Remember, in The Force Awakens he's hard enough to throw out a comment that he had a crew before they went to capture the creatures in the hold...  Can you imagine this Han making that comment, especially with that tone?)

The story was trite and followed the existing patterns so closely that at the end you are not surprised to see a holo projection of a sith promising a return of the characters in the next installment.

Harrelson's performance was not stellar (again, not bad but the movie needs more than "meh").  I have a soft spot for Donald Glover and liked him in the role as Calrissian but that's supporting cast.  I didn't even recognize Emilia initially and again, it was a good performance but not stellar.

Cinematically, they spared no expense and the "train robbery" was beautifully shot.  The characters in Beckett's crew, however, were horribly written (or showed all the hallmarks of a movie being totally recut after filming).  For a bunch of selfish pirates they certainly turn all noble when they needed to to make the heist work...  And if you want to blame that on the Executive Producer who has failed to get along with any director in the history of her role, that is fine.  It still doesn't change what is on the screen this go-round.

 

I'd give this movie a 6/10 and that mostly on the shoulders of cinematography and actors that I have a personal soft-spot for.

TL;DR - As a "turn your brain off and enjoy the scenery" movie this one is beautiful but don't look to it for good, tight writing or even a memorable story.

[shmitty]

23 hours ago, andozane said:

OK, so went to see Solo last night.  To be honest, from the announcement of this movie being made I was negative on it.  I thought this was just a dumb idea for a movie.  I want new stories, not the old characters...

That being said...Solo was a damned fine Star Wars movie.  So much better than the Last Jedi...leaps and bounds.  It is a great adventure story set in the Star Wars universe.  Loved it.

7.5 / 10 if not a tad higher...

A few sequences reminded me of a certain SW:RPG campaign that you GM'ed.

[andozane]

1 hour ago, shmitty said:

A few sequences reminded me of a certain SW:RPG campaign that you GM'ed.

Yeah...Solo definitely got my blood pumping to want to play FFG's Star Wars again....it felt like a cool RPG Adventure 🙂

[WestRider]

Red Lights: Got my hopes up when I saw that Sigourney Weaver was in it. She, Robert DeNiro, and Elizabeth Olsen are all good in it, but unfortunately, the movie is focused on Cillian Murphy's character, and he just takes everything too far over the top, to the point of making the movie more or less completely incoherent by the climax. I think it was actually the fault of the writing and direction rather than his choices, but it still runs the film off the rails. There's also a thing where no one seems to pay any attention; any time anyone says anything important, the person they're talking to always replies with a "What?" or "Who", or "Where?" or something like that, and the first person has to repeat the line. It gets as annoying as if I were trying to talk to someone who wasn't paying attention to me myself.

American Exorcism: There are some good ideas in here, the script isn't too bad (tho it could use some work), and some of the actors are pretty solid. Unfortunately, the guy playing the protagonist isn't one of them, the special effects look like a mix of stuff from original series Star Trek (fight scenes) and stuff that could be done in iMovie or something (the daemonic effects), and the whole thing is generally let down by the lack of budget. It's a shame, because it actually does have some twists on the basic exorcism movie plan that have a lot of potential.

[WestRider]

On 6/17/2018 at 11:34 PM, WestRider said:

Red Lights: Got my hopes up when I saw that Sigourney Weaver was in it. She, Robert DeNiro, and Elizabeth Olsen are all good in it, but unfortunately, the movie is focused on Cillian Murphy's character, and he just takes everything too far over the top, to the point of making the movie more or less completely incoherent by the climax. I think it was actually the fault of the writing and direction rather than his choices, but it still runs the film off the rails. There's also a thing where no one seems to pay any attention; any time anyone says anything important, the person they're talking to always replies with a "What?" or "Who", or "Where?" or something like that, and the first person has to repeat the line. It gets as annoying as if I were trying to talk to someone who wasn't paying attention to me myself.

Thinking about this more, it kind of reminds me of some episodes of Scooby Doo. Velma's on the trail and putting together clues, but then it ends up focusing on Shaggy getting up to wacky shenanigans and somehow solving the whole thing essentially by accident.

[Guest]

Incredibles 2.

Saw it with my mother. So for starters, film listed it's start at 4pm, but didn't actually start until 4:26pm. 26 minutes of not my movie sucks, and we actually debated walking out.

That said, once it started, it was excellent. 5/5. A great movie and one worth owning. It was just done right, without anything that stuck out in my critical mind as being bad. We both very much enjoyed it.

I will warn you, it's a 2 hour film not including the half hour waiting for it to start.

Of note:

-the FW Termite makes an appearance pretty early on in the film - really looks like FW ripped off this film.

-There's something ironic about watching a disney parody of superhero films when disney now makes most of the superhero films. Nothing bad, just interesting to think about.

[WestRider]

Alien Psychosis: Super low budget, unlikable characters, doesn't really get how to ratchet up the tension that a movie like this needs. In particular, the background music felt more like something from a Civil War documentary than a horror flick. Ends up just being kind of a mess. No resolution, nothing makes any sense.

Don't Blink: A slow burn suspense take on the "cabin in the woods" sub-genre. Pretty good for the most part. Actually, an interesting contrast with the previous flick, because there's no real resolution or explanation here, either, but in this one, it ends up just making it creepier. They miss a few beats, some of the jump scares are kind of off, and it goes a little heavy into the Lord of the Flies-type social breakdown, but still, a solid flick if you like slow burn psychological horror.

[WestRider]

Family Blood: Looks at vampirism as a form of addiction. As with most stories involving addiction, the results are pretty depressing.

28 Weeks Later: Two kids engage in dumbassery beyond even the usual standards of horror movies, resulting in lots of shaky-cam, incoherent screaming, and extreme closeups of Jeremy Renner and Idris Elba looking very serious.

[WestRider]

Rogue One: Since The Last Jedi is now on Netflix, I figured this was going to rotate out soon, and I should finally get around to watching it. Not sure that was actually the right choice. Don't get me wrong, it's good, but it's also pretty depressing, and I've kind of hit a run of those lately. It also kind of suffers from an issue that a lot of prequels do: It's hard to get invested in characters when I know everyone dies by the end. A good storyteller can do it, but this didn't quite get there for me. Not a knock on the film, but I think my experience of it suffered from it having been over-hyped to me as well. Finally, I kept getting kind of distracted by the thought of hearing DeForrest Kelley saying "He's dead, Jyn." every time someone bit it, which didn't help at all with me taking it seriously.

[Romans832]

Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom - 8/10 - Interesting movie... kind of the good ol'e Jurassic Park... yet not.

[VonVilkee]

2 hours ago, Romans832 said:

Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom - 8/10 - Interesting movie... kind of the good ol'e Jurassic Park... yet not.

 So want to see this!

[Romans832]

8 hours ago, VonVilkee said:

 So want to see this!

Well worth the theater experience.

And they bundled it so nicely.

Stay till the very end of the credits...

[VonVilkee]

1 hour ago, Romans832 said:

Well worth the theater experience.

And they bundled it so nicely.

Stay till the very end of the credits...

We always do and never look it up online

[WestRider]

Awakening the Zodiac: A trio of Scooby gang wannabes run across what seem to be videos made by the Zodiac Killer, and decide to investigate themselves rather than giving them to the cops. It does not go as well as they hoped. It's more of a mystery/thriller than the horror flick it was categorized as, but it's a pretty solid thriller.

[Romans832]

12 hours ago, VonVilkee said:

We always do and never look it up online

Smart man!

[WestRider]

The Hexecutioners: Supposedly a horror movie, but I just mostly found it sad. It did turn up at the end, tho.

[WestRider]

Slumber: It's kind of strange to me that horror movies about sleep paralysis have become a thing. Not because it's not creepy when made with the assumption that the various legends associated with it are true, but because it takes place while people are sleeping. Which is usually in the dark. Which is a problem for a visual medium, since the audience can't see any of it because it's dark. To really do one well, I think a director is going to have to treat it like a radio drama or something. I would like to see one done well, because like I said, the creepshow factor is definitely there, but I haven't found one yet.

Planet of the Sharks: Imagine if Waterworld, instead of having the largest budget of any film to that time and a big name star, was made by the SyFy Network. And was much more heavily focused on sharks. This is not a good movie, by any objective standard. The acting is mediocre at best, the plot thin, and the special effects look like they were done on a laptop from Freecycle. But it is a whole lot of fun. If you're into the good kind of bad movies, I recommend it.

[InfestedKerrigan]

Girl Lost - wow, I was not prepared for that at 5 in the morning. A Los Angeles hooker trying to support herself and her daughter. Daughter is pimped out, too. Includes bad teen love story.  Not family friendly.

[WestRider]

Executive Decision: Much 90s! So action! Wow!

[WestRider]

Proxy: I really should not have watched this so late at night, when I was so out of it. Well done, but it's a really &%$^ed up movie about some really *%^&ed up people, that manages to somehow make them really sympathetic, and there were parts that I could identify with to an extent that is really pretty disturbing to me. It's not as intense, but the overall effect and the shape it left me in remind me a bit of how I felt after watching Requiem for a Dream.

[Guest]

On 6/27/2018 at 9:42 PM, WestRider said:

Awakening the Zodiac: A trio of Scooby gang wannabes run across what seem to be videos made by the Zodiac Killer, and decide to investigate themselves rather than giving them to the cops. It does not go as well as they hoped. It's more of a mystery/thriller than the horror flick it was categorized as, but it's a pretty solid thriller.

I love your description.