Last Movie Watched.... The Xenforo Edition

Discussion in 'Movies, TV and Music' started by Val1, May 4, 2012.

  1. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Good Boys (2019)
    Dir. Gene Stupnitsky

    [​IMG]

    Max, Lukas and Thor have been best friends since Kindergarten. By the time they get to middle-school, their social status has devolved to the point where they are only one rung above the social pariahs. They get a life-line in the form of an unexpected invitation to a kissing party hosted by one of the most popular kids in their class: only one problem, none of the boys have any kissing experience. A misguided attempt to spy on the teenaged girls next door in the hope of getting some secret kissing lessons leads to the loss of an expensive drone, one which they have to replace before Max' father gets home. This leads to increasingly more absurd situations involving mean girls desperate for Molly, douchey fratboys, lazy cops and creepy men looking to buy sex dolls.

    This is like "Superbad but middle-schoolers" and is even produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Only it never really reaches the heights of hilarity of "Superbad" or even the later knock-offs like "Project X". This is also the weakest performance I have seen from Jacob Tremblay, who is usually a very good child actor. Ultimately fairly forgettable and disappointing.
     
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  2. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

    Mar 1, 1999
    San Rafael, CA
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    [​IMG]

    Rollerball (1975)

    In the distant future year of 2018, the brutal, often deadly sport of Rollerball has a certified star, Houston's Jonathan. Representing the Energy corporate hegemony, the Houston team are perennial winners and are two games from another championship. But the heads of the corporations don't like how Jonathan has survived so long in a game designed to render players indistinguishable, interchangeable, and disposable. If they can't convince him to retire, they will make sure he loses. And they control the rules.

    I don't think this 1975 nightmare of the current day panned out - instead of corporations trying to grind us down to uniform cogs, they are hyper-concerned about our individuality and whatever control the future will saddle us with will come from the terabytes of data they have detailing every little choice we make. Instead of a complete welfare bribing us into decadent complacency (like how Rollerball corporations even provide people with romantic partners), our corporations provide us a fantasy of a solution that can't actually work because if it did we wouldn't keep paying for it.

    I don't think I would be that upset to live in the Rollerball "dystopia", except for the gross incuriousness of the world displayed by the citizens (what little we see of them) - under the not-too-dissimilar Fully Automated Luxury Communism of Star Trek, personal curiosity is the highest virtue.
     
  3. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
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    4. The Silence 2019

    German English language horror starring Stanley Tucci. Netflix really is specialising in B-Grade trash

    The film has deserved terrible reviews and was done much better in Quiet Place and Bird Box. Did we really need a 3rd movie on the same idea?


    [​IMG]
     
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  4. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

    Mar 1, 1999
    San Rafael, CA
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    [​IMG]

    Rollerball (2002)

    In the near future year of 2005, the rough, high energy sport of Rollerball has a certified star, Kazakhstan's Jonathan. Part of a single-entity league spread throughout Asia, the Red Horsemen are a favorite and are just two games from another championship. But the head of the Rollerball league doesn't like Jonathan's questioning of how so many high-profile violent events keep taking place in a game already designed with an Arena League level of attention-grabbing gimmicks. He has to silence Jonathan during the final game. And he controls the rules.

    Not the worst thing ever, but every bit of it feels like a B movie, which kind of sucks considering its $70 million price tag. By taking out the politics they took out the movie's reason for being (except maybe as a early-2000's commentary on Major League Soccer which seems to have taken Rollerball's lessons to heart and removed its artifice including the league's one true advancement, the public official clock, and I WILL NEVER STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT IT!). Even if they just wanted to revel in the sport they failed because they turned it into a quick-cut mess. At least they had Slipknot and Pink among the live bands during the games.
     
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  5. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

    Mar 1, 1999
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    Rollerball (2019)

    How can they not include the Pilot P-700? Man, that is a seriously good pen.
     
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  6. yossarian

    yossarian Moderator
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    Jun 16, 1999
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    I like the Pilot EasyTouch Mediums, myself, but I get ya.
     
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  7. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019)
    Dir. Johannes Roberts

    [​IMG]

    Mia and her stepsister Sasha don't really get along. Their parents plan an activity together for the two girls in the hope that this might bring them closer together, but Sasha convinces Mia to bail on it and sneak off with Sasha's best friends Nicole and Alexa instead. After they first hang out at a secluded lagoon near the entrance to underwater Mayan ruins, one of them proposes to actually use the scuba gear they find nearby to go explore the submerged caves. Only things don't quite go as planned when they get trapped inside after a tunnel collapse and they discover that an aggressive breed of great white sharks have made the underwater caves their hunting grounds.

    I usually enjoy most of these Jaws clones but this one never really got going for me. A shame because there is definitely something worthwhile horror-wise about the claustrophobic environment of an underwater cavern system.
     
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  8. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

    Mar 1, 1999
    San Rafael, CA
    Club:
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    [​IMG]

    Shout at the Devil (1976)

    Hard drinking elephant murderer Lee Marvin needs a British dupe to cover his ivory poaching expedition into German East Africa. Fortunately for him, seeming lightweight Roger Moore was far more capable than he realized and ended up saving his life. They end up in an uneasy partnership combating comic nemesis Fleischer, German commander of the area they keep robbing. But when World War I is declared, Fleischer takes a bloodthirsty turn against more than just the disposable natives. Moore and Marvin get a chance at revenge when they are told the German cruiser SMS Blücher is somewhere in the area. The British seem to think the cruiser is lacking a bomb, and would like to provide one to the Germans free of charge as long as Mr. Bond can deliver it.

    That last part is loosely (very loosely) based on the sinking of the SMS Königsberg, but that takes up just a little of the movie's runtime. It is mostly a colonial adventure of the type you expect when you are told is was filmed in apartheid South Africa and has Roger Moore do a scene in blackface (which was highly unconvincing in its attempt to make Roger Moore look like anyone but Roger Moore). Even 1975 critics thought that all was a bit much. But Moore is just so damn charming. I can't hate this movie as much as it deserves.
     
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  9. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    The Uninvited (1944)
    Dir. Lewis Allen

    [​IMG]

    Roderik and Pamela Fitzgerald, brother and sister, are vacationing in Wales. On a whim they decide to pool their savings together to buy an old, gothic mansion that has seemingly not been lived in for many years. They buy the place from its current owner at a seemingly very cheap price. Stories about it being haunted do not deter them, until they start to hear strange noises at night. They investigate the origins of the haunting and trace them back to the deceased daughter of the previous proprietor and his living granddaughter Stella, who is seemingly drawn to the property yet who is forbidden by her grandfather from ever setting foot in it. Things get complicated when Roderik starts to carry a torch for Stella.

    Pretty good early haunted house horror/drama film. The effects are convincing by the standards of that era and the director was wise enough to only use them sparsely. Any good haunted house story also gives the audience a feel for the place and I love how they do it here (the dog running through the entire property and giving us an early view of the lay-out). Otherwise noteworthy for being one of Gail Russell's earliest screen credits, in the role of Stella. Warmly recommended if you like classic horror films.
     
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  10. riverplate

    riverplate Member+

    Jan 1, 2003
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    #7360 riverplate, Nov 3, 2019
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2019
    I love this movie. Renowned for not cheating its audience on the existence of the supernatural. I was thrilled when this was finally released to home video by Criterion in 2013 -- and as a rather inexpensive disc at that! (They seemed to be on a bit of a Ray Milland kick, having released Fritz Lang's "Ministry of Fear" earlier that year.) And Victor Young's great score introduced "To Stella By Starlight," which would go on to become a classic popular standard.

    Paramount followed this up with another mystery directed by Lewis Allen featuring Gail Russell, "The Unseen," co-starring Joel McCrea. I've never had the opportunity to view that picture and it has never had a legitimate video release. It was considered a huge letdown after "The Uninvited."
     
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  11. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    The Invitation (2015)
    Dir. Karyn Kusama

    [​IMG]

    Will and his girlfriend Kira get an invitation to a dinner party hosted by Will's ex Eden and her new boyfriend David. For Will, this will be the first time he has seen his ex-wife after the pair of them got divorced following the tragic death of their son. Upon their arrival, Will, Kira and the other guests find a very changed Eden. Her beau David has two guests of himself who also behave rather strangely. Everyone apart from Will explains away the weird behavior as "L.A. types acting a bit quirky". Will himself sees a far more sinister motive behind the weird behavior, but his friends assume he himself is overreacting because of the emotion of being in the house where his ex and him lost their child.

    This is a finely made horror film that gets most of its shocks and thrills from the slowly elevated tension (starting with the ominous foreshadowing contained within the coyote scene). In the end, it doesn't really matter that much that the climax is perhaps not as good as what came before. Well-acted, especially by Michiel Huisman, Logan Marshall-Green and John Carroll Lynch.
     
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  12. malby

    malby Member+

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    My late nan swore blind that Ray Milland was born on a train as it passed thru my hometown. I have no idea where this came from??
     
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  13. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

    Mar 1, 1999
    San Rafael, CA
    Club:
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    [​IMG]

    Redline (2009)

    This paragraph would contain the basic outline of the plot if such a thing actually mattered or even existed in this movie. There is a race, and there is a beautiful man and a beautiful woman among the space monsters in it and you already know the story.

    This paragraph is about the mad animation that is the only reason to see this. It's a more adult and western (comic bookish) style than most anime, and unlike most anime it spares no expense. It is a non-stop onslaught of motion, where somehow every object can both be fetishistically real or rendered as the emotional idea of the object (which isn't a new concept, but taken to the limit). Really, this only makes sense in a theater or similar venue where you can immerse yourself in the experience of it. But this still left me cold. I needed more from the plot. Just a little consistency. Or originality. It honestly wouldn't take much. You've all seen some of the crap I've lavished with praise before.
     
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  14. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    I Love You Again (1940)
    Dir. W.S. Van Dyke

    [​IMG]

    Larry Wilson is a passenger on a cruise ship whom the other passenger perceive as especially boring. One night after he inadvertently saves a drunk passenger who falls overboard, he gets hit in the head by an oar during the rescue. Upon regaining consciousness, he has no idea who Larry Wilson is. Instead, he claims to be a George Carey, a career swindler and con artist whose last memory is his intention to place a bet on the Schmeling-Stribling fight nine years earlier.

    Further surprises await him when upon arriving at the N.Y. docks a woman is awaiting him. A woman who turns out to be Larry Wilson's wife but whom George Carey does not remember. Things get even more complicated when Carey falls in love with the woman his other identity married whilst at the same time seeing the opportunity for a lucrative real estate con in Wilson's home town.

    This movie reunites the director and the two stars of the "The Thin Man" movies. Whilst not quite as charming as the aforementioned movies (especially the first two in the series), it is an entertaining rom-com. Powell is reliably good in the comedy bits and Loy is her usual charming self as his main foil.
     
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  15. ASU55RR

    ASU55RR Member+

    Jul 31, 2004
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    Last Christmas (2019)

    This is in very many ways a bad movie. That said, I didn't really dislike it...

    So I guess it kind of fits with the titular song.
     
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  16. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Angel Has Fallen (2019)
    Dir. Ric Roman Waugh

    [​IMG]

    We return to the life of Mike Banning, who is still a secret service agent tasked with protecting president Trumbull. Physical issues are giving Mike pause about whether or not he wants to remain in the field, though he hides these ailments from his wife. During a fishing trip with the president in which he is part of the secret service team providing protection, a successful drone attack is staged that wipes out most of the secret service men and leaves the president in a coma. When Mike wakes up in the hospital, he discovers that he is blamed for the attack, as evidence has been planted both at the scene and within his finances. He has no choice but to escape and attempt to clear his name.

    It's a bit fitting that the "Olympus Has Fallen" trilogy ends with another middling action movie, as this is how I would describe both the original film and its sequels. It still has its moments, like both of its predecessors did. The best scenes all involve Nick Nolte. As for the rest of the cast, I do wonder if Danny Huston isn't tired of playing this same villainous character over and over again. I'm also reminded again of the fact that Piper Perabo's cinematic career has been reduced to playing the wife in fare like this. Hollywood truly is a cruel place for women over forty.
     
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  17. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Point Blank (2019)
    Dir. Joe Lynch

    [​IMG]

    Paul is a nurse at a hospital who gets called back for a late shift. On his ward is a gun-shot wound victim whom the police have taken an interest in as a potential suspect in the murder of a DA. Paul ends up getting blackmailed by the man's brother, who has kidnapped Paul's very pregnant wife and threatens to harm her and her unborn baby if Paul does not get the wounded suspect out of the hospital. Things don't go quite as planned and Paul and his criminal charge have to flee from dirty cops and criminals.

    This is a remake, not of the John Boorman classic of the same name (obviously) but of an excellent French action thriller from 2010. Unfortunately the remake doesn't really add anything new and does not manage to match the quality of the original. The only thing I truly enjoyed was the addition of a sympathetic gangster with a love for classic film who argues the qualities of Friedkin's "Sorcerer" to his gang members.
     
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  18. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Torpedo (2019)
    Dir. Sven Huybrechts

    [​IMG]

    During WWII, a rag-tag bunch of Belgian resistance fighters have earned a bad reputation due to their lack of interest in strategic goals in favor of just killing as many Nazis as possible. They turn out to be the unlikely choice for a submarine crew to sail from the Congo to America in a stolen German sub, to smuggle a cargo of uranium across the Atlantic. To this end, they have to trust in the instructions of a captured German submarine captain, whose loyalties obviously remain in question throughout the mission.

    In spite of the somewhat silly title, this was quite enjoyable. It's a war movie in the Dirty Dozen/Kelly's Heroes/Inglorious Basterds mold, by which I mean that it's not meant to be taken very seriously. It's a pretty amazing achievement considering its micro-budget (supposedly 4 million euros) and the fact that the production values suggest a much costlier film. This is also Sven Huybrechts first feature, which makes this an even more impressive feat.

    This has the usual set pieces you might find in both submarine films and war films in general. My one little quibble was the racism subplot. Their defense would be one of historical accuracy but this movie lacked the dramatic depth to do it justice and all it did now was briefly take me out of my enjoyment whenever they touched upon it. I also believe it's the one thing that will travel worst about this movie (as it already has found international distribution). Koen De Bouw is reliably fine as the Bad Eggs leader but it's Thure Riefenstein as the captured German U-Boat captain woh steals the show for me.
     
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  19. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    JFK (1991)
    Dir. Oliver Stone

    [​IMG]

    Following the murder of John F. Kennedy, New Orleans District Attorney gets obsessed with the case and takes it upon himself to investigate the assassination after he finds the conclusions of the Warren commission to be lacking. He quickly identifies the outlines of a conspiracy, but its sheer scale and nature suggest that he would struggle to prove his case both in a court room and in the court of public opinion.

    I hadn't watched this movie in its entirety since I was a teen (though I have watched 20 minutes snippets whenever I have stumbled onto it on cable in the interim). I revisited it to see how well it holds up. I would say that it's slightly dated now but still enjoyable. This was the 200+ minutes director's cut as opposed to the shorter original theatrical version. The cast Stone assembled here is still impressive 25+ years later.
     
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  20. malby

    malby Member+

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    I so have to see this!!

    Is Sven related to Kim?
     
  21. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    No! :ROFLMAO:
    Belgium is small but not that small. He is actually the son of a well-known TV personality, a former sports journalist.
     
  22. yossarian

    yossarian Moderator
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    Two Marvel guys. Even more specifically, two guys who were introduced via Winter Solider, IIRC.
     
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  23. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    I forgot all about the fact that Grillo was in that!
     
  24. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

    Mar 18, 2007
    SoCal
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    Liverpool FC
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    United States
    [​IMG]

    Based solely on a Netflix quasi-recommendation, we watched this movie. I thought it was OKAY and my wife would give it thumbs down. The problems are basically two: The Premise and The Script.

    Good cast, with Steven Merchant as Walter Thimble, sort of reprising his role on The Big Bang Theory, or vice versa, Anna Kendrick ( the star ) being Anna Kendrick, and Phoebe Buffet playing Lisa Kudrow's wife of Craig R-r-r-robinson.

    And so on...

    Rotten Tomatoes gives 26%, which is a fair estimate of its resonance within the academy of film critics.
     
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  25. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    It Chapter 2 (2019)
    Dir. Andy Muschietti

    [​IMG]

    We reprise the story 27 years after the Losers originally defeated Pennywise the clown. Now all grown up and having gone their own way, mostly away from Derry, they are brought back to their hometown when Mike informs them that people - both kids and adults - have once again been disappearing in Derry and that he is certain that Pennywise is the culprit. Whilst all of the original members of the Losers are reluctant to return, they do eventually all gather in Derry, though it is unsure if they have what it takes to defeat the evil clown for good this time around.

    As horror films go, this one was not very scary. In fact, I would argue that a lot of what happens in the second act is more silly than scary. They also - understandably - use the comic relief value of Bill Hader's character to maximum effect, which occasionally makes this feel more like a comedy than a proper horror film. What still makes this an enjoyable watch is the quality of the ensemble and the fact that it's clear from the performances that they had a blast making this film.
     

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