Rate the Last Movie You Saw

[Munkie]

20 hours ago, Ish said:

About fifteen years ago, I was the manager of a Blockbuster Video. Someone once yelled at me because they didn’t like that their roommate had spoiled the ending of Passion of the Christ.

 

Have they not read the book it's based on?? It is generally described as "good"!

[Ish]

1 hour ago, Munkie said:

Have they not read the book it's based on?? It is generally described as "good"!

I’m still waiting for the sequel to Passion of the Christ, like in the original book. No spoilers, but it’s got this awesome seven-headed dragon in it...

[Duckman]

14 hours ago, Ish said:

I’m still waiting for the sequel to Passion of the Christ, like in the original book. No spoilers, but it’s got this awesome seven-headed dragon in it...

It was released as a mini-series on TV.  Starred David Tennant and Michael Sheen.  May have been a letdown since it didn't follow the original book closely but I really enjoyed it.

[InfestedKerrigan]

23 hours ago, Munkie said:

Have they not read the book it's based on?? It is generally described as "good"!

I really do prefer more science in my fiction.  Also, points lost for regurgitating Lower Plains Canaanite storm gods.

[Raindog]

Zulu Dawn

It is commercial free on Youtube is based on the 1979 movie based on the Battle of Isandlwana , where the English lost 1300 troops in its largest lost an indigenous army. The movie is a great window to a time lost in attitude and arrogance of a colonial power. The current chief of the Zulus at the time played the legendary  King Cetshwayo. It is fun movie and worth the time. It is not as good as Zulu, but I recommend it.

[Romans832]

Tenet - I'm impressed. 9/10

[Raindog]

Golden Eye.

Another Bond film, another day. 

Wow. What a great cast. Judy Dench, Michael Kitchen, Alan Cumming, Sean Bean, Pierce Bronsnan, Famke Janssen. With the tank, it may have be in the top 10 chase scenes all time. With the exception of the racist plot, the certain type of Cossacks, destined by their blood to betray, the movie is top notch. I would list it in the top 10 James Bond films...

[Ish]

The Pierce Brosnan tenure as Bond had some of the best talent in front of the camera (although Denise Richards was miscast), but man did they have some weak scripts to work with.

GoldenEye was great, but The World is Not Enough suffers from really mediocre writing and a very “meh” villain, Tomorrow Never Dies just feels to smug with its thinly veiled Rupert Murdoch stand-in... and Die Another Day is basically a GoldenEye remake!

Brosnan might actually be my favorite actor to play Bond. He combines the suave cool of Connery, the outer stoicism layer over emotional damage of Lazenby, the erudite wit of Moore, and the stone-cold killer of Dalton... Daniel Craig also nails this balance.

I just wish we could have gotten to see Brosnan with a script on par with Goldfinger or From Russia With Love...

[Munkie]

5 hours ago, Ish said:

I just wish we could have gotten to see Brosnan with a script on par with Goldfinger or From Russia With Love...

I actually feel the same way about the Daniel Craig movies. Casino Royale was great, but Quantum of Solace was an unintelligible mess (written during one of the large writers' strikes).

Skyfall was mostly good for the first 2/3rds, but the 3rd act features some of the worst script writing around. Using the 60s Aston Martin to sneak M off the grid and hide her at his parents' manor was a great idea! Then he called the bad guy, told him where he hid M, bad guy shows up, kills M, Bond kills him, gets promoted for failing his mission to protect M. Credits.

He should have been thrown out of MI-6 in shame! 

 

Spectre was pretty good though.

[Ish]

I’ve seen every Bond film multiple times, read every novel and short story Ian Fleming ever wrote, and am probably the only person on earth who ever owned James Bond 007: Role-Playing In Her Majesty's Secret Service from Avalon Hill. My Bond fanboy cred is strong.

I say this not to brag, but so when I say the following you understand my full meaning...

Every time I’ve watched Quantum of Solace I have fallen asleep sometime around Act II. In the theater, at home, on a train... That is not supposed to happen during a spy thriller.

[Raindog]

The Holiday. 

A 2006 Christmas rom-com with Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Jack Black, Eli Wallach,  Ed Burns, and numerous cameos. Diaz and Winslet having romantic troubles trade houses, in LA and Surrey. The characters reset and find new love.  It is great movie to watch with your wife and in the same line as Love Actually. 

[Munkie]

On 12/20/2020 at 4:36 PM, Ish said:

Every time I’ve watched Quantum of Solace I have fallen asleep sometime around Act II. In the theater, at home, on a train... That is not supposed to happen during a spy thriller.

The pacing is bad, the characters are boring, and the action scenes frustrate me beyond compare. I love well imagined and executed action sequences because the timing, coordination, and real legitimate danger of it all, I find fascinating. But the first 3 in that movie feature all of the things that drive me nuts. They definitely had cool concepts (like the rope fight in the museum) but the execution is cheap and lazy. No shot that last longer than 1 second, shaking the camera to create artificial intensity, and shots that are way too close to the action to capture it.

It's a really handy way of avoiding hiring a good choreography team and the expense of coordinating a setpiece action sequence. It also makes editing much easier. Rather than obsessing over making every frame perfect, you go in knowing none of them are.

But to the action buff, it looks cheap and lazy. The Bourne movies are a good example. The fight sequences in Bourne Identity are great--well choreographed with the actors' faces actually seen occasionally, etc. But the subsequent two cash grab sequels, the fights are quick-cut, choppy nonsense.

They also do the same in every batman movie ever made (even the good ones) because having a long, wide shot of batman in a 70lb rubber suit trying to administer roundhouse kicks will just look clumsy and awkward. No way around it.

The best rubber suit choreography I've seen, is the original Ninja Turtles movie. Raphael's fight sequences are legitimately impressive if you go back and watch.

[Ish]

Presented without comment...

[Romans832]

Bill & Ted Face the Music - So much fun ... some really strange parts, but glad to finally see the dream realized.

Tenet - That was crazy. Liked it and what an ending!

[Raindog]

Hang 'Em High.

A late 60's Western with Clint Eastwood, Hang 'Em High is a revenge film. After Clint Eastwood's character is lynched after being falsely accused of murder and cattle rustling, he seeks to bring the men who nearly killed him to justice. Despite a great cast, the movie is a failure. The pacing is uneven and choppy. The direction is weak. The story is blood thirst and preachy. It is one of Eastwood's lesser movies.  

[Munkie]

Wonderwoman 1984:

This is a very, very bad movie.

There is very little action and none of it is good. The emotional punch of the movie is almost entirely reliant on child actors who are not good.

The plot is incoherent. Pedro Pascal (who is usually great) plays an absurd, entirely over the top character. Chris Pine is back for no reason whatsoever.

Bad script, poor acting, and boring as all get out. Kristen Wigg turns into Rum Tum Tugger for some reason and that's supposed to be scary.

I'd tell you not to bother, be we both know you will anyway. It's bad.

[VonVilkee]

4 hours ago, Munkie said:

Wonderwoman 1984:

This is a very, very bad movie.

There is very little action and none of it is good. The emotional punch of the movie is almost entirely reliant on child actors who are not good.

The plot is incoherent. Pedro Pascal (who is usually great) plays an absurd, entirely over the top character. Chris Pine is back for no reason whatsoever.

Bad script, poor acting, and boring as all get out. Kristen Wigg turns into Rum Tum Tugger for some reason and that's supposed to be scary.

I'd tell you not to bother, be we both know you will anyway. It's bad.

HBO max was misbehaving today preventing us from watching it. Thank you for making the decision to go to bed instead of trying again!

 

Watched Netflix Sleepover instead slap stick coming of age dealing with parents movie. Really fun great humor actors and actresses are great in the roles. Played just seriously enough but crazy over the top, excellent if that's your cup of tea.

[Yarbicus]

I turned 13 in 1980 so this movie is aimed squarely at me. This is perhaps the most 80's movie ever made by people born during or after the 80's.

Think of it as the Back to the Future of super hero movies.

It is bright, hopeful, and full of glorious excess. Pedro Pascal's character is the living embodiment of the Me Generation. 

Kristen Wiig's character felt superfluous but she did a great job as the anti-Diana. Also, dang, I had no idea she could look THAT good!

The director is clearly also trying chart her own course when making these movies. It would have so easy to drench the soundtrack with 80's pop music. Instead, I cought only one appropriate Frankie Goes to Hollywood tune. Now THAT'S restraint.

Rather than dark and brooding it is bright and loud. It is the anti-Batman movie.

 

[Munkie]

The 80s aesthetic was about the only part the movie got right. It was an 80s nostalgia movie. Oh and also it's a Wonder Woman movie too. That felt like the approach by the filmmakers. Start with the look, then, if there's time, construct a story to fit within that look.

Thematically, it tries to draw elements of 80s movies like a wish-granting artifact ala "Big." Except it does a really bad job about setting up the rules. It grants everybody 1 wish, unless your name is Kristen Wiig, then you get 2 wishes for some reason. They had a whole scene about Pascal's son not wasting his one wish, but considering there are unspecified exceptions to the 1 wish policy, the stakes of "wasting a wish" are nonexistent. You can't waste a wish, because the script will provide more as needed. Physical contact was required for the first 2 acts, then suddenly no longer required for act 3. What does Pascal get by granting wishes aside from mild wind generation and blood leaking from his head? It's implied that he's becoming more powerful but he never uses that power. Again, the rules are just super loose and ambiguous.

It also borrows the body-swap concept from the 80s too. Chris Pine's ghost possesses another man, and there absolutely no consequences for that. One hot guy is possessed by a different hot guy. Then unpossesses him and the hot guy goes right back to his previous life which has not been impacted in any way. Again, no stakes whatsoever. Not only that, but his character serves very little narrative purpose. In the first movie, WW is the fish out of water. Incredibly powerful but unfamiliar with the world Pine is an expert in. In this one, Pine is a fish out of water AND powerless. He has nothing to add to the story as a character. No way to really help, and no clue how to try. Their dynamic made them both relatable in the first one because one was flawed and the other was human. In this one, Wonderwoman no longer has any flaws, and Pine is a pretty useless ghost.

However! My family realized the perfect fix for Chris Pine's pointless inclusion. They should have had Adam Davine as the possessed body rather than some other generic hot guy. The 80s dressing montage and childlike amazement at 80s technology would've been so much better if they could've juxtaposed Pine's smoldering good looks with a doughy, beady-eyed imp. There was nothing remotely interesting about the "she sees him as a hot guy, but the rest of the world sees him as a different hot guy" dynamic.

As for the Pascal being the living embodiment of the ME Generation, I just didn't feel that at all. Sure, he's doing his best Wolf of Wallstreet impression, but he's very clearly an allegory for Trump and it isn't subtle about that. "Reagan" was in the movie, but there was no attempt whatsoever to satirize him or even portray him as Reagan. He's just a generic "Mr President" the movie needed to again advance the story line. It wasn't really a satire of Me Generation greedy execs, so much as a thinly veiled comparison between Trump and those greedy execs (which is easy, because he got famous by being one). It pulled every punch when it came to actually criticizing the 80s, redirecting those observations to modern times with a sloppy wink and a sharp jab to the ribs. 

It's supposed to be escapist, but tries too hard to have current political commentary for it to pull off either. It's not escapist, nor is it satire. It's a confusing mix of both. Escaping to the 80s to do a satire of 2020. Why?

The soundtrack might've been over the top if they did a Guardians of the Galaxy style nostalgia romp. But I really liked the score in the first one. Those discordant electric cellos. They dialed that back too. 

Remember when we found out Diana can turn things invisible if she wants but she only used that power on a jet that she doesn't need because she can fly AND lasso both clouds and lightning bolts?! Why include the jet? Just so they could do the magic carpet ride from Aladin? So many ideas picked up and dropped with no payoff or clear purpose.

[Duckman]

<shrug>

The movie was fan service.  And I don't mean you, Munk.  I mean the little girls who watched Wonder Woman in '75.  The same ones who thought that the easter egg in the credits was the best easter egg "evaaaah".  Far be it from me to criticize that when I enjoy the Marvel fan service scenes for boys.

I agree with some of your critiques.  I felt like they threw away both Wiig's character and Pascal's character.  I considered the Trump reference you made but decided that if there was anything there it was thin and in the eye of the beholder, not the kind of parallel that a good writer would draw.  My problem was more fundamental...  The whole monkey's paw mechanic which was so shoddy and poorly thought out...  What it takes and how many wishes it can grant...  And as you say, the third act is based on the "you said 'touches', no backsies" idea that is akin to listening to a flat earther and then declaring that there are no mountains because then the earth would not be flat.  At the same time I get why they included Pine...  First, Pine and Gadot have chemistry and the guy they subbed him in for has all the chemistry of a noble gas (while being a recognizable actor for all the women who watch Hallmark movies, remember who I said was the target audience?).  Second, it is a visual tie to the wish, the fantasy that has to be present to implicate Wonder Woman in the evil plot.

As escapism, it was passable but not nearly as good as the first.  It lacks the action punch for an action movie.  It lacks the nostalgia hooks for a nostalgia movie.  In short, it is what DC always does...  Trying to follow in the footsteps of Marvel but failing to understand how to actually pursue or even focus on a specific goal.  Like everything DC has done in the last two centuries, it was worth watching once for completeness if that is your thing but was otherwise pretty forgettable unfortunately.

I'd give it a solid 2/5.  2.5/5 on a good day.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it slightly better than 3/5.

[Yarbicus]

It wasn't just girls who watched the tv show...

[Munkie]

My mom was a big Wonder Woman fan too. She wanted to be Linda Carter when she grew up. She love, love, LOVED the first movie and watches it all the time. She's a big Chris Pine fan too.

By the end of the first act, she said "well at least we're watching this for free."

By the end of the second "free might be too much."

By the end of the movie "this shouldn't have been made."

 

Part of my frustration with the movie is how much it let her down.

[InfestedKerrigan]

Star Wars rise of skywalker

 

I haven't watched it.  It's that bad.

[Munkie]

5 hours ago, InfestedKerrigan said:

Star Wars rise of skywalker

 

I haven't watched it.  It's that bad.

I own it.

 

...still in its shrink wrap.

[dalmer]

My wife and I watched TENET.  We both thoroughly enjoyed it.

Very interesting story line and lots of roles held true.