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

[nameless1]

Dead & Buried (Sherman, 1981) - I don't think I'd ever seen that one, even though it was in every video stores when these places were my second home. It seems there was a lot of problems with re-editing and changes of tone, but it still kind of works. It's a poor man's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with some early work by Stan Winston and Robert Englund, and it has Dan O'Bannon's name in the credits. Oh there's one shot that really got me wondering and that is explained in the IMDB trivia (the shot goes from outside in front of the house to inside, "through the door"): "The scene where Janet comes home and speaks to Dan briefly, was done in one long, elaborate tracking shot. The shot began with a gigging that attached the front door of the Gillis house to the camera. The camera captures Janet pulling up, pulls back as she approaches, and the crew quickly bolts the door in the door frame (detaching it from the camera rigging). The shot then continues to pull back revealing the door as Janet opens it, then follows her as she enters the living room and speaks to Dan." That's impressive. Today that's automatic CGI. 4/10

A fun introduction by Del Toro:




(Oh and I wanted to quote myself to take part in the discussion on Zombieland 1 & 2, but my post about them seems to have disappeared from the forum, weird)

Funny enough, an article about this movie just popped up on my phone, and I actually wanted to check it out. Now, I am not so sure.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Funny enough, an article about this movie just popped up on my phone, and I actually wanted to check it out. Now, I am not so sure.

Judging by your general - quite refined - appreciation of films, I'm pretty sure this one won't please you much. I know 4/10 is a pretty bad rating, but I didn't necessarily disliked it... I could have went with 5.

 

[nameless1]

Judging by your general - quite refined - appreciation of films, I'm pretty sure this one won't please you much. I know 4/10 is a pretty bad rating, but I didn't necessarily disliked it... I could have went with 5.

It was listed under the category of bad movies with a great twist ending. I may still give it a try, because to know good movies, you have to step on a bunch of landmines.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Once Upon A Time in London

with British people

Dramatization of the early gang association/eventual war between 1930's and 40's London gangsters Jack "Spot" Comer and Billy Hill (an early mentor of the Kray twins). We see lots of fistfights in pubs, plenty of razors slashing faces, and much white people jazz. We meet Billy, Jack, and "Mad" Frankie Fraser, an eventual rival for the Krays years later. Lots of scenes where the music plays loudly over where there would normally be dialog. Lesbian prostitute scenes are no doubt intended to be daring. The kind of thing where you're so uninvolved that you notice when peoples' hats come off during fights...and it says something that you're doing that in a movie that has lesbian prostitute scenes. There are lots of big, burly London tough guys...and you'll be lucky if you can identify three or four of them by the end. Edited by someone with ADHD. A mess by any standards.

On Netflix now. Don't watch it.

This looks intimidating, but it wasn't in the movie. And it's 90% of what comes up when you do a Google image search.

 

[Osprey]

Pandorum (2009) - 6/10 (Liked it)

Two crew members (Ben Foster, Dennis Quaid) awaken from hypersleep to find that their ship, which was heading to another world, is in disarray and crawling with deadly humanoid creatures. This is a sci-fi horror that has a plot that reminded me of the PC game System Shock 2, an aesthetic and psychological elements that reminded me of Event Horizon and creatures that reminded me of The Descent. As such, it felt derivative, but I liked all of those and I'm a sucker for sci-fi, so I didn't mind. It's not exactly scary, but has a dark and grimy horror atmosphere and is claustrophobic in a few sections. The film spends most of its $33M budget on sets, props and creature costumes, not CGI, which I appreciated. Something that I didn't appreciate was the editing, which is so jerky and fast in action scenes that it's hard to see what's going on. I don't even think that it's necessary, because the creature effects are very good. It gives parts of the film a low budget, straight-to-DVD look. Fortunately, the whole movie isn't like that, just the action scenes. Another criticism is that Quaid is kind of wasted, since his character doesn't have much to do, unlike Foster's. At least he doesn't mail it in, and Foster is OK, as well. The pacing is good and I wasn't bored, and it has a pretty good ending. For a sci-fi horror that I hadn't heard of, despite being 11 years old, it was surprisingly decent. Ultimately, much like Event Horizon, it's not a movie that I would recommend to most people, but fans of sci-fi horror should probably check it out and might end up finding enough to like, as I did. It's available on HBO and for rent on Prime Video.

 

[Mario Lemieux fan 66]

La belle epoque : 8/10

Mafia Inc: 7.5/10 good movie

Ip Man 4: The Finale: 7.5/10 Not the finest story but the fight scenes are still great.

 

[ORRFForever]

AKA Jane Roe (2020) :

No matter which side of the debate you sit on, AKA Jane Roe makes you feel dirty.

Avoid.

2.5/10

 

[Osprey]

2.5/10

I've noticed that, not even joking, at least half of your reviews are 2.5/10. That seems like an oddly specific score to consistently settle on. Why not 2.0 or 3.0?

 

[ORRFForever]

I've noticed that, not even joking, at least half of your reviews are 2.5/10. That seems like an oddly specific score to consistently settle on. Why not 2.0 or 3.0?

Half? Really? TBH, I'd never thought about it.

I just think a LOT of JUNK has been released recently - the reason for the low scores.

As for why...

2.5 / 10 = 1 out of 4 Stars.

*****************************************************************************

NOTE TO SELF :

NEVER use "2.5" again.

 

[Osprey]

Half? Really? TBH, I'd never thought about it.

Yes. For example, 3 of your last 4 reviews (Castle in the Ground, Fantasy Island and Jane Roe) were all 2.5. Maybe "half" wasn't accurate and I should've said "three quarters" .

2.5/10 = 1 out of 4 Stars.

That's what I figured, but acknowledging that there might be a method to your madness spoiled the joke.

NOTE TO SELF :

NEVER use "2.5" again.

I'm teasing. If that's just your translation of 1 out of 4 stars on a 10 scale, then keep it up.

 

[ORRFForever]

3 of your last 4 reviews (Castle in the Ground, Fantasy Island, and Jane Roe) were all 2.5. Maybe "half" wasn't accurate and I should've said "three quarters" .



That's what I figured, but acknowledging that there might be a method to your madness spoiled the joke.



I'm teasing. If that's just your translation of 1 out of 4 stars on a 10 scale, then keep it up.

 

[McOilers97]

Delete

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Ghost (Zucker, 1990) - I knew this was bad. I remembered that in the first week of the semester a screenwriting teacher told us that this film was an example of a perfect screenplay - that was it for his credibility, poor guy got made fun of the whole way through. I didn't remember how bad it was though. A banker in his 40s that's trying his best to look young but failing moves into his 16M$ flat in New York city with his younger fancy sculptor girlfriend to whom he can't say he loves her but who wants to marry him. Damn, these are great characters to build a love story on. This film doesn't know if it's wanting to be a comedy, a romantic drama, a supernatural farce or catholicrap propaganda (the good guys go to heaven but bad guys go to hell stuff, with the demons coming to get you, is ridiculous). Demi Moore holds her own (the film comes a little after her too-hot-for-Hollywood period, but before her boob-jobs fiascos), and young Whoopi is way too charming for this crap. Otherwise, well... 2/10

 

[ORRFForever]

Ghost (Zucker, 1990) - I knew this was bad. I remembered that in the first week of the semester a screenwriting teacher told us that this film was an example of a perfect screenplay - that was it for his credibility, poor guy got made fun of the whole way through. I didn't remember how bad it was though. A banker in his 40s that's trying his best to look young but failing moves into his 16M$ flat in New York city with his younger fancy sculptor girlfriend to whom he can't say he loves her but who wants to marry him. Damn, these are great characters to build a love story on. This film doesn't know if it's wanting to be a comedy, a romantic drama, a supernatural farce or catholicrap propaganda (the good guys go to heaven but bad guys go to hell stuff, with the demons coming to get you, is ridiculous). Demi Moore holds her own (the film comes a little after her too-hot-for-Hollywood period, but before her boob-jobs fiascos), and young Whoopi is way too charming for this crap. Otherwise, well... 2/10

Please tell me this is a gag review. Please tell me you didn't waste even 1 minute of your life on this movie.

 

[nameless1]

I actually like Ghost.


Yes, it is not great with flat characters and a very black-and-white premise, but I actually find that to be part of its charms. Perhaps it helped that I watched it before I saw through all the Hollywood cheap tricks and much prefer foreign cinema nowadays.

 

[ORRFForever]

I actually liked Ghost.

Shame.

 

[Osprey]

I actually liked Ghost.


Yes, it is not great with flat characters and a very black-and-white premise, but I actually found that to be part of its charms. Perhaps it helped that I watched it before I saw through all the Hollywood cheap tricks and much prefer foreign cinema.

Ditto.

Most people loved Ghost when it was released, much like how most people loved Forrest Gump and Titanic. Such sentimental films were extremely popular in the 90s, but I think that becoming so ingrained in pop culture (especially parodied) and quickly dated contributed to a backlash. Just look at Titanic, the box office record holder for 12 years and winner of a record-tying 11 Academy Awards, having only a 69% user rating at RT. I haven't seen Ghost in 20 years, but I still love the other two in spite of their datedness, so I would think that I'd still at least like it. In fact, now I'm curious and wondering if this is a good time to finally watch it again.

 

[nameless1]

I did, too. Most people loved Ghost when it was released, much like how most people loved Forrest Gump and Titanic. Such sentimental films were extremely popular in the 90s, but I think that becoming so ingrained in pop culture (especially parodied) and quickly dated contributed to a backlash. Just look at Titanic, the box office record holder for 12 years and winner of a record-tying 11 Academy Awards, having only a 69% user rating at RT. I haven't seen Ghost in 20 years, but I still love the other two in spite of their datedness, so I would think that I'd still at least like it. In fact, now I'm curious and wondering if this is a good time to finally watch it again.

Sentimentality is a strong emotion, and the movie also does not commit too many cultural faux pas that are no longer acceptable nowadays. As long as people ignore the fact that the goon and the comic relief are played by visible minorities, I believe it will hold up, despite its inherit corniness.

 

[nameless1]

Shame.

That is fair.


Then again, I like Hall and Oates and Air Supply as guilty pleasures, so I am not ashamed.

 

[kihei]

Tony Manero (2010) Directed by Pablo Larrain 7A

Ton Manero is about a John Travolta/Saturday Night Fever wannabe. Raul Parades (Alfredo Castro, great performance) is 52 years old, joyless, full of pent up grievance, and just incidentally the scum of the earth. Raul wants to win the Tony Manero dance-alike contest at a local TV station as he has nothing else going for him. Basically, he is a total turd of a human being. He beats up an old woman to steal her TV, he engages in petty crimes, steals from the dead, and knocks the odd guy over the head with a brick for seemingly no reason at all. It dawned me while I was watching Tony Manero, though, how seldom an audience has to deal with a thoroughly irredeemable character at the movies. Usually even scumbags and villains have a soft spot or at least possess charisma or dole out violence with a bit of flair. Nothing about Raul is remarkable at all; he is just a walking disaster waiting to happen to some poor unsuspecting soul. Obviously Chilean director Pablo Larrain, a consistently very smart director, is after bigger game here than merely creating this portrait of a loser. Tony Manero is set in the Pinochet era, a right-wing dictator infamous for his brutality, and clearly Raul Parades is meant as example of how far the rot can set in when a country loses its values, when people feel that they have no future. Tony Manero sounds like a downer, but actually the movie is oddly entertaining. It's not every day one runs into this particular kind of sociopath. His nihilism is fascinating from a distance, though you wouldn't want to see him walking down the street in your neigbourhood.

subtitles

 

[Osprey]

Ghost (1990) - 8/10 (Loved it)

It's sappy, corny and dated... but it's also very touching, sad and funny. How many films can pull off being sad and funny? With all due respect to my fellow reviewer, I have to agree with his professor and the Academy (which awarded it Best Original Screenplay): it really is a superb screenplay. It's not that it can't decide whether it's a comedy, a love story or a supernatural thriller, IMO. It's that it decided to be all three and somehow pulled it off. I think that it's similar to why Jojo Rabbit has been praised and won Best Adapted Screenplay. On top of that, the film's pacing is excellent. I was surprised by how quickly it went by. I was reading that director Jerry Zucker brought his experience with pacing from working on comedies (like Airplane!, Top Secret! and The Naked Gun), which probably also explains why the film's comedy works so well. Not everything works so well anymore, though. Like I said, it often feels a bit (or a lot) corny and it maybe takes greater suspension of disbelief than it did in 1990. I think that you just have to buy the silly, unbelievable premise and go with it, much like you would for a film like It's a Wonderful Life or Harvey, and not apply too much modern over-thinking to it. Also, the film's morality is probably going to appeal to fewer modern viewers than it did in 1990 and the 80s-style action climax is definitely dull and dated. Finally, the visual effects (of which there are way more than I remembered), mostly involving Swayze passing through objects, don't all hold up too well, either, but most pre-CGI visual effects don't. What I think really does hold up (besides the humor and the pacing) is the love story. It's still powerful after 30 years and still one of the more unique love stories in film, considering that the participants are essentially apart for most of the film. I remembered the ending, I was prepared for it and I still felt moved. I can totally see why none of the film might work for someone who's seeing it for the first time or goes in with a negative mindset, since it's definitely dated, but it still worked very well for me after all of these years. To me, it's a modern (well, not so modern anymore) classic and the haters are probably just envious of Swayze's hair ...

 

[KlausJopling]

Joker (8/10)

Enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Main gripe is they had a lot of good character actors that had very little screen time. I think if they had a weaker actor as Joke those characters would probably have done more heavy lifting rather than just tee up Phoenix. This movie could have easily been a 2/10 if they didn't have Phoenix. While I gave it a high rating its probably not a movie I would want to watch again.

1917 (9/10)

The "single take" didn't distract and allowed for some stunning visuals. I went in expecting this to be all technical movie making with very little character development. While watching this I kept thinking of Saving Private Ryan (probably because it focused on one group of soldiers on a mission behind enemy lines) instead of something like the more recent Dunkirk which had multiple story lines. While I loved Saving Private Ryan I felt like 1917's character development/back story felt more alot more meaningful. In Ryan you had the lulls in the action which felt like okay here is the part where we get 5 minutes of dialog to try and get us to care about Joe from the Bronx. In 1917 those lulls had a bigger payoffs(especially the one in the "middle" of the story), most of the payoffs were silent.

I made a mistake at reading about some of the complaints after i saw the movie (luckily not before), while there valid (no one in command would give a damn about losing a small number of men in the grand scheme of things) those type of complaints could be waged against almost every war movie.

 

[Pilky01]

10/10 - Absolutely loved it!

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Ghost (1990) - 8/10 (Loved it)

It's sappy, corny and dated... but it's also very touching, sad and funny. How many films can pull off being sad and funny? With all due respect to my fellow reviewer, I have to agree with his professor and the Academy (which awarded it Best Original Screenplay): it really is a superb screenplay. It's not that it can't decide whether it's a comedy, a love story or a supernatural thriller, IMO. It's that it decided to be all three and somehow pulled it off. I think that it's similar to why Jojo Rabbit has been praised and won Best Adapted Screenplay. On top of that, the film's pacing is excellent. I was surprised by how quickly it went by. I was reading that director Jerry Zucker brought his experience with pacing from working on comedies (like Airplane!, Top Secret! and The Naked Gun), which probably also explains why the film's comedy works so well. Not everything works so well anymore, though. Like I said, it often feels a bit (or a lot) corny and it maybe takes greater suspension of disbelief than it did in 1990. I think that you just have to buy the silly, unbelievable premise and go with it, much like you would for a film like It's a Wonderful Life or Harvey, and not apply too much modern over-thinking to it. Also, the film's morality is probably going to appeal to fewer modern viewers than it did in 1990 and the 80s-style action climax is definitely dull and dated. Finally, the visual effects (of which there are way more than I remembered), mostly involving Swayze passing through objects, don't all hold up too well, either, but most pre-CGI visual effects don't. What I think really does hold up (besides the humor and the pacing) is the love story. It's still powerful after 30 years and still one of the more unique love stories in film, considering that the participants are essentially apart for most of the film. I remembered the ending, I was prepared for it and I still felt moved. I can totally see why none of the film might work for someone who's seeing it for the first time or goes in with a negative mindset, since it's definitely dated, but it still worked very well for me after all of these years. As far as I'm concerned, it's a modern (well, not so modern anymore) classic and if you're a hater, you're maybe just envious of Patrick Swayze's hair:

I guess now I know how everybody felt when you went out of your way to defend Forrest Gump!

Seriously, I'm glad my little comment got you to go back to watch it. It's still is a very bad film, with a very bad script, predictable plot, always borderline offensive (to anybody who's not a white rich christian banker in his 40s, anyway), and profundly dumb. It made you laugh and cry? I laughed when I saw the demons (and not only because they were terrible effects or looked like crap - both true), but crying on this movie feels completely absurd to me. And believe me, I'm a big softy, both After Life and that dumb thing my gf makes me watch (Zoey's music playlist or whatever) got me yesterday, I'm the worst baby ever. Anyway, to each their own and I'm still very happy you had a good time with it.

 

[Osprey]

I guess now I know how everybody felt when you went out of your way to defend Forrest Gump!

You actually have a lot more company. Instead of only two or three posters and a total 5% of people (according to RT) agreeing with you, you have a whole 20%, including ORRFForever .

Seriously, I'm glad my little comment got you to go back to watch it. It's still is a very bad film, with a very bad script, predictable plot, always borderline offensive (to anybody who's not a white rich christian banker in his 40s, anyway), and profundly dumb. It made you laugh and cry? I laughed when I saw the demons (and not only because they were terrible effects or looked like crap - both true), but crying on this movie feels completely absurd to me. And believe me, I'm a big softy, both After Life and that dumb thing my gf makes me watch (Zoey's music playlist or whatever) got me yesterday, I'm the worst baby ever. Anyway, to each their own and I'm still very happy you had a good time with it.

I'm glad that you didn't take it personally. I know that it looks like going out of my way to watch what someone just panned and give a contradictory, glowing review, but the discussion genuinely got me interested to watch it again to see whether it lived up to my memory and if I would feel strongly enough to make a counter argument.

FWIW, I didn't say that I cried, just that it moved me at the end. That takes a certain level of buy-in and I don't think that you're going to have that if you've worked up a disgust in the 90 minutes that preceded it. I, too, have let lots of emotional endings fall flat because I didn't care for everything that preceded them.

BTW, I don't mean to be argumentative and you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but I'm curious about how you can call it a very bad film with a very bad script when it was nominated for Best Picture and won Best Original Screenplay. I totally understand if none of it is to your taste. I have a loathing for American Beauty, myself, but I'm not going to argue with the general consensus about its objective quality. I just don't understand being so convinced that the consensus is completely backwards and, especially, laughing at it (I mean, what's the point of students taking and staying in a screenwriting class if they believe that they know what a good screenplay is better than the teacher?). Anyways, I don't mean to put you on the spot. That part just seems a little strange to me. I can totally see and respect the film not being to everyone's tastes, though, especially nowadays.