Last Movie Watched.... The Xenforo Edition

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

  1. TheJoeGreene

    TheJoeGreene Member+

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    The thing to remember with Keanu is, the less aware of what's going on his character is, the better the movie. He's usually not good at pretending to be someone who knows things.
     
  2. malby

    malby Member+

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    War movies are my favourite genre.

    Slightly different review from the norm here - see if you can guess which movie I watched from these descriptions of several scenes.

    Veteran captain leads his men on an assault on German troops. Half way thru he has minor breakdown looking at chaos all around him. Recovers and leads his men in a successful assault.

    Behind the lines - Several officers enter a grey haired Generals office to tell him about a situation that has developed behind enemy lines. The General takes out and reads a letter that was written by Abraham Lincoln to justify his decision to send troops on a rescue mission.

    Veteran Captain reports to his C/O post battle. C/O tells him he's been chosen to lead this mission 'the orders come straight from the top'.

    The Captain goes to a communication trench in the rear to pick up a soldier who's been assigned to the mission due to his skills tells soldier 'to get his rifle he'll need it.

    The Captain meets his sergeant and tells him he wants several of his men with Italian, Irish & Jewish names for the mission.

    The men are seen walking thru a French field on their way. There is banter among them to show their camaraderie and they also slag off new guy.

    They come across a building on their way. The Captain says they will assault it. Three of them will lead the charge one in the middle and two either side. Captain says he will take the middle and asks for volunteers for rest. No one volunteers.

    Pinned down by machine gun fire the Captain steps out from behind his cover to draw fire so his men might move forward. Having just avoided been riddled by bullets he ducks behind his cover with his sergeant who tells him ' Don't let your mother know you did that'.

    It was at this point that I had to take this movie off.

    If you guessed The Great War -Dir- Steven Luke well done!!!

    Can screenwriters be sued for plagiarism??????????
     
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  3. TheJoeGreene

    TheJoeGreene Member+

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    Welp, Paramount+ is releasing the Director's Edition of this movie (I don't think I've seen that anywhere) on April 5.

     
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  4. Belgian guy

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    Al morir la matinée (2020)
    Dir. Maximiliano Contenti

    [​IMG]

    Early 1990s, Montevideo. Ana, daughter of the projectionist at a movie theater that has seen better days shows up to relieve her father, wanting to prevent him from working an exhausting double shift again. An engineering student, she will take over her father's tasks for the later screenings as torrential rain pours down outside. Only a few people show up for the low-budget horror film they have programmed for their next show. Among them, a couple on their first date, a kid who stowed away during an earlier screening, three bored teenagers and an ornery older man. Also present, unbeknownst to both the staff and the handful of customers is a murderer, who intends to kill as many as the attendees as possible once the movie starts...

    This slasher is a Uruguayan-Argentinian co-production. An enjoyable one at that. Movie theaters have been used in horror films before of course, and they make for a strangely effective setting for such stories. The Big Bad isn't particularly memorable, but the final girl is rather good (an excellent Luciana Grasso) and the movie is very nicely shot. A solid genre exercise.
     
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  5. Belgian guy

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    Furie (2019)
    Dir. Le-Van Kiet

    [​IMG]

    Hai Phuong is a young mother to nine-year old Mai. Mai's father is not in the picture, so it's just the two of them. Back in the day, Hai Phuong used to be a skilled gang enforcer back in Saigon, but after the birth of her daughter, she has moved to the country where she supports herself and her daughter as a debt collector. A role which makes many of the people in her local community resent her. This is further aggravated by the fact that Mai feels shame at her mother's job and is picked on daily at school due to the contempt for Hai Phuong the other kids' parents transfer onto their children.
    Both of their lives change when Mai is kidnapped one day by a pair of men who take her to Saigon. Hai Phuong follows, soon learning that her daughter has been taken by a dangerous gang of human traffickers, with only a limited amount of time left to save Mai before she is lost forever. She thus has to tap into the very skills which once made her a force to reckon with in Saigon's underworld, in the hope of saving her daughter before the clock runs out...

    The highest grossing Vietnamese movie in history, this is a well-made martial arts action thriller with a strong lead performance by Veronica Ngo. The action set pieces are crisp and nicely shot. The climax on the train is classic. Think Vietnamese Taken, only with a bad-ass mother instead of a father as the lead character. A prequel is in the works, with Veronica Ngo as the director instead of the lead and with the same action & fight choreography team returning.
     
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  6. Belgian guy

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    Death on the Nile (2022)
    Dir. Kenneth Branagh

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    During an Egyptian vacation, Poirot runs into his friend Bouc, who invites the Belgian sleuth to accompany him and his mother. They are part of the small group of guests who have been invited along by newlyweds Linnet & Simon Doyle. Whilst Simon was still engaged to another woman as recently as six weeks ago, Linnet and him went through a whirlwind romance that culminated in the quick marriage. Adding controversy to the union is the fact that the fiancee that Simon dumped in favor of Linnet is Jacqueline de Bellefort, a long-term friend of Linnet's.
    After the married couple meet Poirot, they approach him and ask for his help. It seems that Jacqueline is stalking them, having even followed them to Egypt. They fear for their safety and thus Poirot also accompanies the honeymooning couple and their guests on the next leg of their vacation: a cruise down the Nile in the riverboat Karnak. Once on board, Poirot soon learns that it's more than just Jacqueline who might have cause to harm Linnet. When violence does start occurring, the iron-clad alibis of the obvious suspects complicate matters.

    The second Poirot adaptation that Branagh has helmed and starred in. A movie whose released was pushed back several times, both by COVID-19 and the controversy surrounding Armie Hammer. Most critics seem to prefer Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express to this one. I am of the opposite opinion, I think Death on the Nile is a better experience start to finish. Though the attempts to expand upon the Poirot character's mythology fall a bit flat for me. The real enjoyment comes from the adaptation of the classic story. As far as the cast is concerned I really liked Gal Gadot's work in this. When the trailer dropped, there was a lot of mockery surrounding a somewhat awkward line delivery of hers. But this is an interesting turn for her, in which she does a few things she has rarely been allowed to do in her Hollywood career so far. Mostly related to the kind of films she has primarily been in so far (F&F franchise and DC/WB films).

    Something that is more or less summed up by this observation:
     
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  7. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

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    #8557 spejic, Mar 29, 2022
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2022
    No reason.

    [​IMG]

    Good Hair (2009)

    A documentary by Chris Rock about Black women's hair, covering the physical processes of modifying it, the business behind it, and the personal, interpersonal, and societal aspects of it (as experienced mostly during the last decade of the 1900's and the first of the 2000's).

    This was really eye opening to me, as I had no idea about any of this. But then, I really don't know much about beauty products in general. My single hair product is more noted for it's Victorian-era industrial byproduct dandruff control chemistry than for what it does to my Stalinesque follicles. Besides being educational, it's also entertaining. Chris Rock is funny in a low-key off-the-cuff way and the whole thing is framed around a hair style contest full of wild characters. I'm really glad I saw this. But it ends up being kind of sad - there are a lot of problems caused by this industry, mostly self-imposed. And to top it all off, all this vanity is enabled by an act that is specifically anti-vanity: the ritual tonsure of Indian women. I do wish there was a bit more about the history, particularly of the 1970's.

    I was moved by the brief scene where he interviews someone with alopecia, and I'm glad to see Chris Rock have such sensitivity for people suffering from this.
     
  8. Belgian guy

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    Clean (2021)
    Dir. Paul Solet

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    A reclusive garbage man who largely tries to keep to himself outside of his job starts to help care for a teenaged girl in his neighborhood who is being raised by her grandmother. He is troubled by some of the criminal elements who hang around, but avoids confronting any of them. Until circumstances force his hand. In the aftermath, both him and the small family he was trying to protect are endangered, until he uses the skills learned in his violent past to meet the threat head on.

    This is another rough re-telling of the blue-print that was perhaps not invented by Shane, but certain perfected by it: man with a violent past returns to his old ways to protect innocents preyed upon by evil men. Apart from a decent lead performance by Adrien Brody, it doesn't really stand out from any other such genre exercise. The action set pieces are adequate, the story is told in a sparse style that suits the protagonist well. But ultimately not enough elements are present to make this at all a memorable film.
     
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  9. Belgian guy

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    The Contractor (2022)
    Dir. Tarik Saleh

    [​IMG]

    James Harper is a newly discharged former special forces Sergeant who was mustered out after his new CO came down hard on drug and substance abuse. With various painkillers found in Harper's blood, mostly to help him cope with his surgically repaired knee, it signaled the unplanned end of his career. Against his wife's objections, he goes back on his prior promise to not go into the private sector after his active military career is over. His old friend and former fellow soldier Mike offers him a gig at the private military contractor he has been working for since being discharged. The large payday and the promise of meaningful work sways him. The first operation that James is a part of takes him to Berlin, where he is tasked with observing a bio-chemist who is suspected of ties to a terror network. After the operation moves onto a more active phase, things do not go as planned and James is left to doubt if the mission objectives he had been briefed upon were genuine.

    Both Pine and Foster had been in much better films - including one they appeared in together. The problem isn't really the lack of a twist - since I'm guessing everyone will be able to guess what will happen by the end of the first act - but the utter lack of anything original or memorable within the writing. I have seen this film before, and most of the time, done much better than here. A shame of an otherwise excellent cast. On that note, whilst it is already something of a crime to cast the great Gillian Jacobs only to reduce her to the role of "worried wife", it's perhaps an even bigger affront to bring aboard the super-talented Nina Hoss and then give her perhaps four lines of dialogue, all of them equally meaningless.

    [​IMG]
     
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  10. TheJoeGreene

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    [​IMG]

    Just finished the 4k remaster of the Director's Edition. Somehow I had missed this cut of the film over the years, and it's a definite improvement over the theatrical release. It's still not great, but if this cut had hit theaters then the franchise itself may have been even more successful.

    The 4k remaster looks beautiful on my 55" Roku TV in UHD. I'll add this Blu-ray to my collection when it releases (expected in September).
     
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  11. chad

    chad Member+

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    Encanto: wealthy celebrity family that is better than all of the other families feels put upon by adoring and needy lesser public. Sing, goddess, the anger of being born privileged. Wealthy family kind of confronts what it would be like not to be special, realize that their grandfather earned their specialness, and come to the conclusion that they can have their cake and eat it, too. Features a couple songs the kids like, along with some Moana b-sides.
     
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  12. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

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    What kinds of things were changed?
     
  13. TheJoeGreene

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  14. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

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    Yeah, while I loved the model work, some of those matte paintings were more prog-rock album cover than windows into infinity, and some of the traveling matte shots had obvious bleeding around the edges. But I was wondering more about new scenes. I was hoping they could make the movie slower and more ponderous.
     
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  15. TheJoeGreene

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    It's somehow 4 minutes longer, but passes by noticeably faster. I don't remember the exact count, but they cut out a few dozen scenes, reduced the transition time on dozens more, and added something like 90 images along with a few more scenes.
     
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  16. TheJoeGreene

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    #8566 TheJoeGreene, Apr 7, 2022
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2022
    [​IMG]


    A movie about ghosts and the busting thereof. The original film is rightfully considered a classic by many. Ghostbusters II and the 2016 remake were legitimately terrible in my estimation, leaving me mostly disinterested in this one.

    I had a $5 reward coupon from Fandango to use on Vudu, so it cost me a whopping $1.48 to rent this one.

    It's actually good. Not great, and it relies a bit much on nostalgia, but after about 15 minutes I was engrossed and never lost interest. It even has a pretty solid ending.

    I feel like Finn Wolfhard is going to be the BC based ghost/supernatural equivalent of Michael Cera's Ontario based awkward comedy career.

    McKenna Grace is a really good young actress and it will be interesting to see if that translates to adulthood for her.

    Carrie Coon and Paul Rudd play their roles probably how you would expect.

    The theme song is still a banger. The first after credits scene is a great call back. The second after credits scene nearly got a tear out of me.
     
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  17. bungadiri

    bungadiri Super Moderator
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    Agree completely. Thought that the first time I watched her in Gifted.

    Angourie Rice is on a similar trajectory. She did sweet and smart very well in The Good Guys and it was cool to see her play a much more complex role in Mare of Eastown.
     
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  18. Belgian guy

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    Deep Water (2022)
    Dir. Adrian Lyne

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    Vic and Melinda are married and parents of a young daughter. On the surface they might appear as the perfect couple. In reality, Melinda is a serial adulterer whose infidelity is grudgingly accepted by her husband Vic. When Vic threatens Melinda's newest love interest at a party they both attend by implying he is the one responsible for the disappearance of Melinda's previous lover, it causes a stir of shock and gossip around the neighborhood. Vic claims that his words were just meant to scare his romantic rival away and held not a morsel of truth to them. Something more or less confirmed by the revelation of the missing man's real fate shortly thereafter. The little scandal divides the small community, between those who just think Vic has a very dark, caustic sense of humor and those who believe the mere fact that he would claim a murder he had not committed points to a certain sinister darkness in his personality.
    But when another one of Melinda's lovers dies not too long afterwards, some people start to suspect that Vic might have something to do with that death. Including his wife Melinda...

    Though this is based on a Patricia Highsmith novel of the same name and it is at least moderately faithful to the main plot points of that story, this is far more reminiscent of the kind of erotic thrillers that were briefly back in vogue in the 1990s. I specifically mention that era and not say the 1980s, just because I could have easily seen this very same screenplay adapted in say 1997. It's an enjoyable little film, primarily due to the two very good central performances. Ana de Armas' career has taken a very interesting turn since Blade Runner 2049. I hope she remains on this path instead of choosing the money and security of a far more mainstream career. As for Affleck, perhaps his leading man status is more of a detriment than a boon. His best performances are invariably when he gets to play slightly weird characters (like here). One small caveat, I feel like the director didn't fully commit to the genre, this should have been 10% sleazier, at least. Paul Verhoeven would not have made that mistake.
     
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  19. bungadiri

    bungadiri Super Moderator
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    Adrian Lyne's depictions of marriage and, in general, relationships between men and women have frequently repulsed me and make me wonder what kind of creep he is in real life. That's probably unfair, but damn does he seem to prefer using films to argue that sex is all, and love and friendship between men and women are illusory at best.
     
  20. Belgian guy

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    What is kind of odd to me is that for a man with a past in the genre, so much of it felt tentative and unsure. Possibly this wasn't Lyne's fault but the studio, depending on what choices might have been foisted upon him.
     
  21. bungadiri

    bungadiri Super Moderator
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    Interesting. As troubling as I thought Unfaithful was, there was an undeniable clarity to the film. Best acting I've seen Diane Lane do, and I'm not making a sleazy point about the sex scenes, either. At times her emotions seemed so raw I felt like a reluctant voyeur. Maybe 20 years away just made him rusty?
     
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  22. Belgian guy

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    The Night House (2020)
    Dir. David Bruckner

    [​IMG]

    Beth is a bereaved widow whose architect husband unexpectedly took his own life. Remaining in the house she shared with him - and he himself designed - she starts hearing strange noises in the night and has weird, vivid dreams from the first few days after his death. This compels her to investigate her husbands behavior in the last few weeks and months of his life. She discovers strange books on the occult, a neighbor reveals nighttime activity on her late husband's part in the forests around their home and eventually she discovers a rough mirror image of their home exactly opposite where she lives, on the other side of the lake. Yet none of this helps make sense of her increasingly strange night-time visions.

    Decent little horror thriller. It is another horror story largely tied to a place, in this case a lake-side home - and its scary twin sister. It's also another horror film that requires the protagonist to act alone in many scenes, so it's a good thing that we are in good hands here with Rebecca Hall. I admire the largely practical, in camera effects that are meant to convey the presence and the fact that the director largely avoids cheap jump-scares. Features Sarah Goldberg - of Barry fame - in a supporting role as Beth's worried best friend.
     
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  23. Belgian guy

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    Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
    Dir. Eric Radomski & Bruce Timm

    [​IMG]

    Gotham is under the spell of a masked individual who has been killing members of the underworld. A few eyewitnesses have mistaken the killer for Batman, meaning that some now believe that the Dark Knight has given up on the moral red lines which prevented him from killing before. It also means that Gotham PD is now actively trying to capture him, in spite of Gordon's objections. Bruce himself has other things on his mind, in the form of the return to Gotham of former wealthy socialite Andrea Beaumont, a one time fiancee of his. Ten years earlier, it was her decision to break off the engagement that was the final incentive for Bruce to truly start his crime-fighting career as Batman.

    Having finished my rewatch of season one of Batman: The Animated Series, I decided it was a good time to also rewatch Mask of the Phantasm. Following the success of the TV series, Bruce Timm & co got the chance to make a feature-length animated film. Though it somewhat failed at the box office (it's one of just two of the DC/WB animated films to get a theatrical release), its subsequent success on home media gave birth to the long-running DC animated movie universe, of which I am a big fan. Though many of the voice cast from the TV show return for this first longer adventure and the stylistic traits will be familiar to fans of said show, there are obvious differences too. It was made in 16:9 for its theatrical release (unlike the for TV aspect ratio of 4:3 for Batman: The Animated Series). The animation itself is slightly nicer and crisper, the character designs a tiny bit more refined. The story is fairly straight-forward but well told and nearly three decades later, this is still easily one of the better DCAMU films.
     
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  24. Belgian guy

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    Spiritwalker (2020)
    Dir. Jae-geun Yoon

    [​IMG]

    A man wakes up at the site of an apparent car accident, injured and sporting at least one bit of damage that could not have been caused by a car crash: a gun shot wound. He is troubled to discover he has no memory of who he is or how he got there. Subsequently he finds out that some people are seemingly after him, but things get truly bizarre when after twelve hours, he suddenly finds himself awakening in the body of an entirely new individual. As he moves from body to body Quantum Leap style, each time in twelve hour intervals, he tries to find out what on earth is happening to him, all the while instinctively trying to protect a young woman he meets early on in his investigation into his real identity...

    This was a lot of fun. A Korean action thriller that makes good use of the amnesiac hero trope. The audience only discovers the details of what is transpiring along with the confused protagonist. Slowly ups the stakes until we arrive at a John Wick like climax. Very good performance by Ji-Yeon Lim.
     
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  25. Belgian guy

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    Shakedown (1950)
    Dir. Joseph Pevney


    [​IMG]

    Jack Early is an aspiring news photographer who struggles to get his foot in the door at any newspaper or magazine. With the help of a sympathetic photo editor who takes a liking to him, he is accepted on a trial basis at a paper, where through dumb luck and low cunning, he manages to snap some spectacular shots that soon earn him a permanent staff position at his paper. But this level of success isn't enough for him, and after a chance encounter with a local crime boss by the name of Nick Palmer, he cultivates a relationship with Palmer in the hope of getting underworld tips that might lead to more opportunities of snapping exclusive pictures of violent crime. As the Palmer relationship starts paying dividends, he eventually ends up getting more actively involved in the criminal underworld, far past the boundaries of any journalistic integrity...

    Nice noirish drama about a man undone by his own hubris and utter lack of ethics. In its themes if reminded me a lot of Nightcrawler. In fact, Jack Early and the Nightcrawler protagonist, Louis Bloom, are two men cut from exactly the same cloth. A quick google search revealed I was not the first one to notice the similarities. Good performance by lead Howard Duff, as well as Peggy Dow as the kindly photo editor who carries a torch for a man who ends up not being worthy of her affection, as well as Lawrence Tierney in one of his many tough guy roles.
     
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