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

[ProstheticConscience]

Animal Kingdom

with more Australian people

Dramatization of the exploits of the Pettingil criminal clan of Melbourne, most notably the killings of two young police officers who were ambushed when they turned up to investigate a stolen car left in the middle of the road, an event widely seen as payback for the trigger-happy Melbourne armed robbery unit's use of lethal force too often.

The show based on this movie moves the action to southern California, and makes the brothers all surfer-dude beach bums (along with skilled armed robbers). In both cases, J, the teenage grandson of matriarch Janine (Smurf) Cody comes to live in the family compound following the OD death of his mother, who had left the clan long ago. He steadily becomes more and more involved in the family lifestyle and occupation.

Yet another case where the tv show is a lot better than the movie it's based on. You're not missing much if you skip the movies, but both the shows are worth watching.

 

[Puck]

Never put this connection together. I don’t think it’s a specific reference, just a moment for both of those characters to have a tender moment (obviously, it has more symbolic resonance in JoJo Rabbit)

You're probably right. Just thought it was overly coincidental that two scripts back-to-back had her tying shoelaces for her men. If she does it again in Black Widow, I'll laugh, I'll know 'there is something afoot'.

 

[Osprey]

1922 (2017) - 6/10 (Liked it)

In 1922 Nebraska, a farmer (Thomas Jane) makes a fatal decision to preserve what he has and ultimately loses much more. This Netflix original adaptation of a Stephen King short story has classic King themes like guilt and consequences and classic King elements like isolation, cornfields, wells, rats and such. It's a slow burn of a horror movie that gets you more with atmosphere and mood than truly horrific sights. Jane gives a strong performance by capturing the distinct manner of speech of simple men of his era. Truthfully, it was distracting early on, since it's so different than how he speaks in, say, The Expanse, and it was also hard to understand, but I got used to it and appreciated how it added to the authentic feel of the movie. That and other details made the setting feel right, and I love when period films have that. Even though the movie is a little slow, it kept my interest. Unfortunately, it wears a little thin in the end and has a somewhat weak and disappointing conclusion, IMO, perhaps because it was a short story and not a fully fleshed out novel. It's too bad because a stronger ending would've really elevated the movie. Still, in spite of that, I liked the movie enough to recommend adding it to your Netflix queue if you tend to like period horror or Stephen King stories, at least the slower ones.

 

[mccabe2424]

Color out of space (2019) I don't know how to explain this movie but it was impressive 8/10

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Detour (1945) - 6.5/10 - Admirable but a bit of a shallow attempt at a noir and unintentionally quite-cliched. I do admire the to-the-point 77 minute run time which prevented it from being a drag but it shouldn't make any top noir lists. Speaking of which...

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) - 8/10 - After you get past the first 10 or 15 minutes involving child actors and time goes forward, it's a great well-acted film with a strong cast (featuring a young Kirk Douglas) and a really good story line. Van Heflin is a pretty underrated actor, doesn't appear he was in a lot of good notable films in terms of ratings today but has a couple really strong performances.

 

[Newsworthy]

Memento - 9.5/10

Terrific film.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Joker

with Joaquin Phoenix, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, and a whole lotta clown masks.

The titular character and titan of Bat-lore gets a weird origin story that's partly contemporary and part retro. Phoenix is Arthur Fleck, deeply mentally ill rent-a-clown on the mean (and garbage-strewn) streets of Gotham City with aspirations of being a stand-up comedian and having normal human relationships. This doesn't go as planned. Real life kicks him in the shins while wearing steel-toed boots, and he descends into delusion, nihilism and eventually murder. He inadvertently creates a real-life movement of disaffected thugs who riot and pillage while wearing clown masks, because I guess red baseball hats would've been too on the nose. The moral of the story being apparently that we as a society need to take better care of hallucinating clowns.

Yeah, I dunno. Phoenix turns in a good performance but 11 Oscar nominations? Really? Can't see that.

 

[mmalady]

Marriage Story 4/10

I dunno..thesbians, divorce lawyers, oblivious bratty kid ....aaaargh...actually got a few good chuckles out of it so thats why i gave it a 4

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

Dunno where else to put this, so here it is...

 

[David Dennison]

Detective Pikachu - 5/10 Good pace and kept my attention but the ending didn't make any sense.

Spoiler

Couldn't save Ryan Reynolds during the car crash but is able to pull him out of Pikachu's ass and he's fine?

 

[Arizonan God]

1917 (dir. Sam Mendes)

Technically stunning and some great performances, but to be honest I didn't get too much out of this. The emotional beats were hit and miss, some of the action seemed a little off, and the score was way too over the top at points. Roger Deakins really pulled something amazing off, I just wish the rest of the film matched his efforts.

6/10

 

[Pizza!Pizza!]

1917

7/10

Above post sums it up pretty well. Bonus point for being a mostly original script in this day and age.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Open Your Eyes/Abre los ojos (1997) - 7/10

Two things prevent this original version of Vanilly Sky from being great. First is the lead actor, can't say he's any good here and quite tedious to put up with throughout the film. I haven't seen the Hollywood remake but I would probably have enjoyed the more charismatic Tom Cruise far more than this moaner. The other issue is the film's manipulation of time. I'm not a fan of this, hiding information works well in whodunnits and when it's honest time manipulation like in Dunkirk then it also works but in the case of this, it feels like the film is being vague and confusing just for the sake of being vague and confusing.

 

[Mario Lemieux fan 66]

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: 7/10

Richard Jewell: 6.8/10

 

[Osprey]

Last night, I did a divorce double feature (probably not something that you'll see put on at your local cinema)...

Marriage Story (2019) - 5/10 (Didn't like or dislike it)

A NYC married couple with a young son goes through a divorce and custody battle after the wife leaves her workaholic husband and moves to California. As advertised, the performances from Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver are excellent and really make the film. The story feels real and honest and doesn't take either side. Both sides are shown to be guilty to a degree and sympathetic to a degree. That said, I can't quite say that I liked the film. There was just something (or several things) missing. I feel that it didn't really offer anything new, was a little monotonous and a little long and lacked much of an ending or message. It also just didn't quite resonate with me on any level. It's a good film and I won't mind if it wins Oscars, but it came up a bit short with me.

Kramer vs Kramer (1979) - 7/10 (Really liked it)

A NYC married couple with a young son goes through a divorce and custody battle after the wife leaves her workaholic husband and moves to California. Yes, the similarities are almost too many to be coincidence, but it's also a rather different film. I put off watching it my whole life because I assumed that it depicted a nasty, drawn-out divorce with Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep yelling at each other for an hour and a half, but it's nothing like that. It's actually an amicable separation and the majority of the film concerns Hoffman playing Mr. Mom while Streep is nowhere in sight. Both do give terrific performances (that are worthy of their Oscars) and the kid is amazing, as well. In fact, I read that, at 8 years old, he's still the youngest actor to ever be nominated for an Oscar. Partly thanks to that, the film is quite tender and touching, and even though I couldn't really relate any more than to Marriage Story, it resonated with me more. It also doesn't suffer from the same monotony, over-long-ness or lack of ending, IMO. It also wins points for being so reflective of the changing views of motherhood and fatherhood at the time (with mothers becoming more work focused and fathers becoming more family focused), a point of social relevancy that Marriage Story just doesn't have. Finally, even though the films don't end all that differently, I just felt better upon this one's conclusion than the other and like I had just seen one of the best pictures of the year.

 

[OhCaptainMyCaptain]

Pain and Glory - 8.5/10

I now understand why Antonio Banderas got the nomination. Well deserved, IMO. Overall story isn't anything crazy special, but the performance really pushes it over the top.

 

[OzzyFan]

Bad Boys for Life
2.55 out of 4stars

Guilty pleasure, I liked it more than the rating suggests. Some good lines, good laughs, and good action. Also, a better storyline than the 2nd Bad Boys movie and more "real" drama inside.

Color out of space (2019) I don't know how to explain this movie but it was impressive 8/10

What type of genre/genre mix would you describe this movie as? I know they throw out Lovecraft's name and I know the director a little, but I wasn't quite sure what to take from the trailer and storyline. It got me interested, but not sure how widely available the movie is going to be also. Is there a movie that has a similar feel you can compare it to even?

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

What type of genre/genre mix would you describe this movie as? I know they throw out Lovecraft's name and I know the director a little, but I wasn't quite sure what to take from the trailer and storyline. It got me interested, but not sure how widely available the movie is going to be also. Is there a movie that has a similar feel you can compare it to even?

Haven't seen it myself, so I can't answer your question, but I love how the trailer goes "The return of filmmaker Richard Stanley" - outside of a few shorts, the guy did only two films, both unique enough to make him some kind of cult/legendary figure. I know I will like this film.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Hellboy (new one)

pointedly without Ron Perlman or Guillermo del Toro, and it really hurts.

The new version of Hellboy returns to the screen without the old cast, director, great visual sense, charm, warmth, humour, or reason for being made. But it's got lots of swearing and gore, though. If you're an ADD-addled teenager who never saw the other ones I guess you might like this one. The Hellboy movies weren't exactly towering cinematic achievements or anything, but at least they had a director who had a sense of style and a cast you could care about. This is absent on both counts. Its idea of edgy features lots of f-bombs and buckets of blood splattering all over everything.

I watched it so you don't have to.

 

[mccabe2424]

Bad Boys for Life
2.55 out of 4stars

Guilty pleasure, I liked it more than the rating suggests. Some good lines, good laughs, and good action. Also, a better storyline than the 2nd Bad Boys movie and more "real" drama inside.



What type of genre/genre mix would you describe this movie as? I know they throw out Lovecraft's name and I know the director a little, but I wasn't quite sure what to take from the trailer and storyline. It got me interested, but not sure how widely available the movie is going to be also. Is there a movie that has a similar feel you can compare it to even?

It has the same feeling of Mandy actually it's a horror sci-fi pretty good!

 

[tacogeoff]

1917

7/10

Above post sums it up pretty well. Bonus point for being a mostly original script in this day and age.

it had the adventure feeling of the hobbits setting out in Lord of the Rings on their quest and undertones of Saving Private Ryan.

That being said I really enjoyed it. The cinematography and the score were tremendous. 7.5/10. I think I will watch it again and it may even get a bit better.

 

[Osprey]

Gerald's Game (2017) - 6/10 (Liked it)

A married couple (Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood) visits a lake house to re-kindle their romance, but things go badly, leaving her to face her inner demons while handcuffed to the bed. This Netflix original adaptation of a Stephen King novel is very much a psychological thriller. It bears similarities to Misery, because it takes place mostly in a bedroom, and to Dolores Claiborne, in that abuse and an eclipse play roles. Carla Gugino gives a strong performance, proving that she can handle a starring role. It's directed very well by Mike Flanagan (Oculus, Hush, Doctor Sleep), who keeps the film suspenseful even though not much is going on. I liked that it's a smart film for adults. In fact, I really liked it for most of its length, but was a little disappointed in the eventual twist and the aftermath and had to take a point off. Still, I liked the film and can recommend it for fans of Stephen King or psychological thrillers. Between this and 1922, Netflix is two for two on Stephen King adaptations, which isn't bad.

 

[The Kingslayer]

Parasite - 9/10

Might be one of the best movies I have seen in a long long time. Didnt know about the hype until after I already saw the movie and went on YT to get some answers. Thought it was going to be a campy asian horror flick like Ringu.

 

[The Kingslayer]

Memento - 9.5/10

One of those movies you really cant go to the washroom in the theatres ( I did) big mistake. Had to wait for DVD to rewatch it. A classic. Guy Pierce was great.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Molly's Game - not too sure why I watched that - 3/10