Rate the last movie you've seen

[Polino1]

I watched Parasite (2019) on my friend's recommendation, I'd give it a B+.

[Neil]

The Keep (1983) - 6.5/10 Michael Manns supernatural film is great to watch at times, but during the second half it seems to utterly lose its way. He's all but disowned the film seemingly because the studio butchered the final cut losing an hour of footage or so? Guess that might account for the confusing narrative, especially in the second half. Even the Tangerine Dream soundtrack couldn't help it enough

[MinionZombie]

My Lucky Stars The opening ten minutes are pretty awesome with Jackie Chan and co flying around a theme park and car stunts etc ... then it's literally 50 minutes of the titular lucky stars coming together to sexually pester a woman they're working with for reasons I can't quite remember (these "comedy" interludes definitely wouldn't be done today, ha!) ... and all without any action going on. Then, finally, mercifully, JC returns at the 60 minute mark after being completely absent from the movie and the action kicks off again and it gets fun again. I mean, to be fair, some of the stuff with the bumbling gaggle of 'lucky stars' is funny, but it often goes on waaaaaaaaay too long (e.g. the comedy rule of three is regularly swept aside in favour of doing the same gag five times over for each 'lucky star' - whether it's the fake robbery to get a chance to be tied up to the woman, or the food ordering bit). So a bit of a patchy affair and poorly balanced/paced, but when the action kicks off it's good. It was subtitled, but fuck me you have to speed read the whole damn movie as everyone's talking so friggin' fast. I kept missing the ends of sentences! Heart of the Dragon I don't really know how the title plays into this, but at least this time Jackie Chan is in the whole movie. It's an action comedy, but there's also a surprising amount of crying going on in the movie. JC is dreaming of joining the Navy, but he can't break away because he's responsible for looking after his mentally challenged adult brother, who frequently gets into all sorts of scrapes and trouble (and is regularly bullied, harrassed, mocked, and beaten up over the course of the film - another aspect that certainly wouldn't happen these days). Again, it suffers from some bizarre pacing problems - the opening ten minutes is action central, then the next 40 to 50 minutes is dominated by character drama and goofy comedy, before it suddenly remembers it's suppose to be telling a story. Suddenly JC is now a cop on the hunt for some jewel thieves, or something like that, and then it all kicks off for the remaining portion of the film - the building site battle sequences are pretty rad with lots of gun fighting and martial arts going on. There's even a surprising amount of warmth and heart to some of it. So, again, some pointed pacing issues, but it was definitely better overall than My Lucky Stars. This one was dubbed into English, which was a big help, even if some of the accents are a bit silly (very posh British upper class cop bosses, for example, or Essex/London sounding school children). To Live And Die In L.A. Third viewing of this cop crime flick from William Friedkin. The first time I saw this movie was when I was just a teen, so I didn't gel with this well. I liked the action bits, but the story, characters, and style all kinda went over my head. In the last couple of years I got the Blu-Ray and my second viewing was much improved, and the third time was even better. They don't make many (or any) like this any more with its gritty characters and a few surprisingly twists along the way that go against the typical crime movie grain. Oodles of style, too. I got all hot and bothered to watch it again because the opening themetune was used for "John Mulaney's Everybody's in L.A." on Netflix.

[shootemindehead]

Spoilers... ‘Civil War’ With its politics kept delightfully vague, so as not to upset the internet, Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War’ sets us amongst events set in a near future USA where the nation has descended into a chaotic conflict that, miraculously, sees California and Texas aligned and leading a group of secessionist coalitions called the Western Forces against a seemingly totalitarian President (Nick Offerman) and the forces that are loyal to him. Wanting to interview this President, who is on his third term (presumably under his own steam) are veteran photojournalist, Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst) and correspondent Joel (Wagner Moura). We meet them in NYC as they set out for the long journey to Washington DC and along for the ride is old timer and long-time journo friend Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and a young newbie Jessie Cullen (Cailee Spaeny) who hero worships Smith and is eager to emulate her. However this central premise is where ‘Civil War’ has its first stumble. Do these journalists really think that they can just rock and roll up to the Whitehouse and interview a President who hasn’t been in the public eye for 14 months and where the Capitol forces shoot journalists on sight as “enemy combatants”, according to Sammy? ‘Civil War’ thus ends up being more of a road movie than anything else, as we travel along with the “press gang” on their route 857 miles to the Capital. Along the way we meet a variety of characters, few of whom are savoury, and witness a country that is torn apart. Not all of the US has succumbed to war, however, and some people “stay out of it”, in contrast to uniformed and non-uniformed lunatics who are thrilled to have someone to shoot at and an outlet to relieve their own frustrations and prejudices, encapsulated in a wonderfully psychotic Jesse Plemons. War crimes are apparent everywhere and it’s always unclear which side are which and who’s doing what. That lack of clarity is the strength of ‘Civil War’ and goes a long way to illustrating the confusion that often surrounds the foreign wars that western correspondents have to cover where it can be very unclear who is fighting who and why. But now, they have to see it happen in their hemisphere. But aside from that ‘Civil War’ is frequently a poor movie, that’s laden down with some really stupid characters. Joel is permanently doped up and not someone with whom I’d be prepared to travel into a combat zone with and the two Chinese idiots we meet, whom Joel seems to know well, are clowns of such staggering magnitude it’s amazing that they haven’t been killed long before we come across them. The veteran journos taking along a kid to a warzone is equally unimpressive. Although, in real life the actress playing Jessie is 25 years old and she does well with what she’s got. But it’s Dunst that takes all the honours and is a shining contrast to some of the other characters. We also have to sit through the unlikelihood of journalists and photographers accompanying front line troops as they go into actual close combat. I cannot imagine any scenario we see in ‘Civil War’ where that would happen in real life. Sure, there have been journos allowed to photograph combat before, such as Robert Capa, but it’s usually not in first wave assaults and in such close combat situations, where such a thing would constantly get in the way of the soldiers trying to do their job. Yes, Capa supposedly did land in Normandy during the first wave, but the authenticity of his story of being in the first wave and where and when he was exactly that Tuesday morning has been challenged. The reality is that while war photographers do take chances to get their money shots and many have been killed doing so they are usually not at the sharp end. The journos in the movie, however, accompany squads on incredibly dangerous attacks and are constantly running into the zone of fire and taking ridiculous risks, while simultaneously thwarting the advances of the forces they are there with. Any commanding officer worth their salt would have told them to “go away” in no uncertain terms. In addition, the ending of the movie is so telegraphed as to be a real let down when we finally see the obvious occur. Before the climax happens, the viewer just knows clearly what they’re about to see and when it happens you wonder just how the film makers could have just acquiesced to such a transparent and uninspiring finale. ‘Civil War’ ultimately becomes a movie that has good parts and bad parts, where the bad parts drag the good parts down to their level and arresting imagery is often contrasted with dumb characters doing dumb stuff to move the plot along. But for a 50 million budget (A24’s largest I think), it’s quite impressive what the film makers have managed to put up on the screen, so it ends up being worth a watch. 6/10

[Neil]

Contact (1997) - 8.5/10 A great bit of scifi, written by Carl Sagan - his only science fiction novel I believe? And some nice film work by Robert Zemeckis. Shame Carl died just shortly before the film's release, so he never got to see it

[MinionZombie]

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F First of all, it can't match the original two movies, but it never was going to was it? So does it at least beat BHC3? Definitely, it shits all over it, I'd say - so that's good. The first quarter is thoroughly entertaining, but then it does somewhat start to go a bit limp and flabby at times thereafter, and the action isn't as punchy as I was hoping for. Indeed, even the way the film is shot feels slightly plain too often, a bit journeyman-like - certainly not the energetic flair of BHC2 (Tony Scott). It's certainly worth checking out, and it doesn't embarrass itself, but I couldn't help but feel that maybe it was falling short of where it could have been. Still, there were plenty of enjoyable moments and it rose a few good chuckles from me with Axel's typical bluster and carry-on.

[Neil]

^ Agree with this. A lot of mediocre and clear (re)member berries, but also enough stand out good parts to make the film worth while.

[shootemindehead]

Was genuinely surprised by 'Beverley Hills Cop Part III'. While it wasn't a patch on the original 80's classic, it also certainly wasn't a bad movie either and an OAP Murphy turns in an decent shift at the office. It was weird seeing the likes of a bloated Judge Reinhold make an appearance, but I spose you couldn't make the movie and not ask him to appear. If there's a real weak spot it was Taylour Paige (what is it with some Americans and their stupid penchant for giving their kids dumb names or dumb variations of names?) as Axel Foley's daughter. She was pretty bad. Plus, the first few minutes in Detroit was pure cringe with everyone knowing Foley's name and it getting repeated every two minutes. Yeah, we all know who he is in the audience too. Over all, though, a solid 6/10 movie.

[MinionZombie]

Was genuinely surprised by 'Beverley Hills Cop Part III'. While it wasn't a patch on the original 80's classic, it also certainly wasn't a bad movie either and an OAP Murphy turns in an decent shift at the office. It was weird seeing the likes of a bloated Judge Reinhold make an appearance, but I spose you couldn't make the movie and not ask him to appear. If there's a real weak spot it was Taylour Paige (what is it with some Americans and their stupid penchant for giving their kids dumb names or dumb variations of names?) as Axel Foley's daughter. She was pretty bad. Plus, the first few minutes in Detroit was pure cringe with everyone knowing Foley's name and it getting repeated every two minutes. Yeah, we all know who he is in the audience too. Over all, though, a solid 6/10 movie. Yeah ... the actress playing his daughter ... the performance was oddly uneven at times, like very rough at random moments and then back to a normal level. Very strange, some of the takes were, well, not good. I didn't think she was bad overall, but there were moments that were very surprising they made the cut or they didn't have a better take ... strange. I re-watched BHC2 the other night. Now that's a hell of a lot of fun, that movie.

[MinionZombie]

The Iron Claw Just popped up on Prime. I'd heard it was good and it was about wrestling, and that's really all I knew, so I was going into it pretty fresh. Anyway, I thought it was pretty darn great with a host of excellent performances (Holt McCallany and Zac Effron chief among them as father and son), with lots of rich character stuff to dig into throughout the story - and there's certain moments or lines of dialogue that really pack a punch, so I've found it to be one of those movies that lingers in your mind for days afterwards, helped even more by an excellent closing track that fits perfectly into the 1980s time period in which the film is set (see below).

[Neil]

Longlegs - 7/10 Stylish psychological film - Lovely feel to it, if lacking a bit in overall story IMHO.

[MinionZombie]

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare Now that was a fun fuckin' movie! I'm sure there's plenty of bits of stuff that aren't 'accurate' to the true story, no doubt, and it certainly takes the WW2 action movie angle on things - but it was entertaining as all get out. Yeah, a little bit of trimming here and there at script stage wouldn't have gone amiss (e.g. a couple of times we were essentially being told the same info twice in different ways to different characters). It's a bit curious to have Mexican actress Eiza González playing Marjorie Stewart, mind you ... she's quite good in the role, but not exactly an ethnic or cultural match, eh (in this day and age)? Anyway, it was a ruddy good watch and I could easily see myself giving it another couple of viewings in due course. Well worth checking out for a fun evening in front of the telly.