Rate the last movie you've seen

[MinionZombie]

Is "Happy" on Netflix? Certainly sounds like something I'd watch (or even write), haha!

[bassman]

Is "Happy" on Netflix? Certainly sounds like something I'd watch (or even write), haha! When did SyFy start producing good material?? The first season is currently on Netflix. .....

[MinionZombie]

..... D'oh! I'll check this one out soon. - - - Updated - - - Watched the first episode of "Happy!" yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it, right up my street, so hopefully the rest of the season continues to be as good. I noticed that the co-creator/director is Brian Taylor, one half of Neveldine/Taylor who made the Crank movies, so you can get an idea of what it's like visually and tonally. When the opening scene is a guy blowing his brains out, only for the moment to seague into a musical number with dancing girls and a hypnotic trail of cartoonish blood wafting from the busted-open skull you know you're gonna have an out-there time!

[JDP]

I Was a Teenage Zombie (1987) - Hilariously and amusingly bad amateurish flick about a drug dealer called "Mussolini" who gets killed by a group of teenagers and his body is then dumped in a contaminated river that turns him into a zombie hell-bent on revenge. The movie actually manages to be purposefully funny sometimes, like when the group of bumbling teens are theorizing and arguing about why did "Mussolini" come back as a zombie.

[bassman]

NO SPOILERS Avengers: Endgame If you’ve seen any non-spoiler reviews, you’ll know it’s hard to talk about the film other than to say it’s definitely worth a trip to the cinema! I know there are lots of people out there that find comic films silly and all, but if you’ve enjoyed even a select few films in the 22-film “Infinity Saga”, you owe it to yourself to see this with a crowd. Whether you think it’s for better or worse, this type of flick is helping to keep the community feeling of cinema alive. In the most basic of terms, this is the series/season finale, paying off everything that’s come before it. And I mean EVERYTHING. This film goes to places that you won’t expect, even improving upon the previous 21 films. It’s truly an amazing feat from everyone involved. Of course there is grand spectacle, but what really makes it work is that it has soooo much heart. You’ve known these characters for more than a decade and it’s like watching your friends in the final battle for their lives. I’m getting goosebumps now just thinking about certain scenes. There are some issues, which I won’t get into for fear of spoilers, so it’s not an absolutely perfect movie, but what really is? You’ll cheer, you’ll laugh(hard!), you’ll get emotional....all while in a packed theater of like-minded fans?!? Such a great experience! Don’t miss this if you’ve enjoyed any of the prior MCU films! Hats off to everyone involved. Truly.

[EvilNed]

I agree mostly. It manages to tie thing together, and revisit places and characters, that I never thought they would. There's cameos from a lot of people who have been in the films throughout the years, even really big actors, even if they're only in it for like 5 seconds (which is sometimes the case) and even they only played a bit part in one of the previous films. That was actually the most impressive aspect of it for me... The sheer number of characters from the past who make an appearance. As for the film itself I thought it was good. Not great, but good. There are some fucking bad ass moments, however. Moments that compare to when the riders of Rohan charge the orcs in the Lord of the Rings-films. I'll remember it for the peaks, not so much some of the slower parts.

[bassman]

As for the film itself I thought it was good. Not great, but good. There are some fucking bad ass moments, however. Moments that compare to when the riders of Rohan charge the orcs in the Lord of the Rings-films. I'll remember it for the peaks, not so much some of the slower parts.   When Cap starts to make his stand against Thanos’ army, tightens his shield straps, then you hear “Cap, on your left”....I was so excited by that callback!! Such a simple thing that somehow worked so well. Then as EVERYONE walks through the portals, with it all culminating in the first ever “Avengers Assemble!” from Cap?!? I was a kid again!! The theater exploded, I friggin loved it. I feel like the deaths and departures were handled about as well as they could have been. Stark went perfectly, Cap’s was a touch more shaky for me, but it’s acceptable. On a side note: I kept waiting for a lightening bolt to hit Thor and he’d magically be muscular again, but nope.....he was Fat Drunk Thor for the entire film! That’s a ballsy move, but they stuck to it!

[MinionZombie]

Everybody Wants Some!! Richard Linklater's spiritual sequel to Dazed & Confused. It's a 'hang out movie' about a bunch of college baseball guys in the few days leading up to the beginning of the semester. While it's impossible to really live up to the long-established fan favourite D&C, I really dug this flick. Good cast, as well, which includes Wyatt Russell and Austin Amelio (Dwight from TWD). It's an interesting look at male bonding, too. Staten Island Summer You could stick this in a nice little triple bill of 'coming of age movies where the characters work at a swimming pool' with The Way Way Back and The To Do List. It's got a bunch of SNL folks in it from the current or recent cast, and while some of the dialogue is a bit on-the-nose and the story isn't anything all that new, if you want more of this kinda vibe then it's a very enjoyable watch.

[EvilNed]

When Cap starts to make his stand against Thanos’ army, tightens his shield straps, then you hear “Cap, on your left”....I was so excited by that callback!! Such a simple thing that somehow worked so well. Then as EVERYONE walks through the portals, with it all culminating in the first ever “Avengers Assemble!” from Cap?!? I was a kid again!! The theater exploded, I friggin loved it. I feel like the deaths and departures were handled about as well as they could have been. Stark went perfectly, Cap’s was a touch more shaky for me, but it’s acceptable. On a side note: I kept waiting for a lightening bolt to hit Thor and he’d magically be muscular again, but nope.....he was Fat Drunk Thor for the entire film! That’s a ballsy move, but they stuck to it!   Haha, pretty much agreed on all accounts. That moment is definitely, DEFINITELY one of the best crowd pleasing moments I've ever seen in the theater. So god damn epic. I also thought about the Thor-thing. I hope he's back to normal in GOTG3 tho. However if there's one thing I'd change it's that I think it'd make more sense for Steve Rogers to designate Bucky the next Captain America, although I guess this is the way the comics play it out. As for the future I hope they incorporate the X-Men next now that they've acquired the rights. It feels like the natural place to expand upon in order to introduce new popular heroes that aren't super powerful. Having said that I kinda wish they don't include Wolverine. I don't think anyone can top Hugh Jackman. He is Wolverine to me. But Cyclops and some other people could probably be introduced.

[MinionZombie]

Tomb Raider The latest iteration, which rebooted the franchise on the silver screen. The action is pretty good and there's some good moments of tension throughout, and Vikander brought a lot to the role. Movies based on videogames don't exactly have a great history, in fact they've got a pretty terrible history, but this is easily way up on top of the pile. A solid 3/5 type flick. An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn From the dude who brought us The Greasy Strangler, this is much less gross but pretty much just as weird. If you dug the oddball vibe of TGS then you'll get along well with this one, although the movie definitely feels a good ten minutes too long (TGS was 15 minutes shorter and felt more on-point running time wise). The cast are all game and there's quite a few familiar faces in this one, plus a good host of rarely seen (or even never seen) character actors who really have fun with their roles. Bad Moms This is an odd duck of a movie. Written by a couple of dudes, the best thing about this 'raucous comedy' is that it's about the self-inflicted torrent of pressure that mothers put upon themselves, and the lengths they go to in order to please everyone else. There's also a really nice surprise in the end credits where the main actresses are interviewed with their own mothers beside them. However, the film also has some really iffy bits. Chief among them is the 'circumcision chat' scene, which is a bizarre interlude as the ladies get ready for a boozy night out and hope to get some action. No way in hell would you have seen a film called "Bad Dads" hit cinemas in which there was a scene where a bunch of guys stood around flat-out mocking "gross" vaginas with "gross" being determined on nothing more than 'what it actually looks like'. Such a scene would quite justifiably be abhorred as body-shaming and a whole bunch of other phrases that are regularly used on Social Media. So why on earth was this bizarre 'circumcision chat' in the movie at all? Very odd. Indeed, the movie ironically stumbles with its male characters. Whether it was intended as some kind of inversion, I don't know, but frankly what's the point? All you've done is flip the same coin from one side to the other, when what you really want is a different coin. Naturally, this movie is about the mum characters, but the dad characters are routinely reprehensible except one (Jay Hernandez plays the "hot dad" love interest). You have to wonder how Mila Kunis' character could be married to such an oppressively stupid man for TWELVE YEARS without realising it when the audience knows he's trash within 60 seconds of meeting him. Likewise, Kristen Bell's character has a good arc in the movie whereby she regains confidence and gains some friends, but we only see her husband in two short scenes and he's depicted as being utterly overwhelmed with the kids (much like she is seen earlier in the movie). How does her arc end? With her, essentially, bullying her husband and low-key tearing him down for being useless and overwhelmed. Hooray??? So, yeah, like I say ... it has a really bizarre tone and outlook, this movie, with all the iffy stuff being stuff you could really do without as it damages all the good bits. Hell, even the hateful villain of the piece gets to have an emotional catharsis and become a better person who is welcomed into the group (especially as she's rich, it kinda seems). Hmmm... Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile What a mouthful of a title, eh?! Anyway, this is the 'Zac Efron Ted Bundy movie'. Netflix have it in the USA, and Sky Cinema have it in the UK (where it was also released in cinemas day-and-date). I've long had a morbid fascination with serial killers, so I was familiar with the Ted Bundy story, and it was good to see a different perspective in this film. Directed by the same guy who made the excellent four-part "Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes" doc on Netflix (if you've not seen it, definitely check that out), this movie skews away from the actual crimes to focus more instead on seduction and subterfuge. We see the movie in terms of how Bundy was able to charm his way through life and evade suspicion, even when caught and trapped within an increasing maelstrom of legal trouble whereby his 'innocence' was continually chipped away at. Through the eyes of his first girlfriend (with whom he was partnered for many years, becoming a surrogate father to her child) as well as following Bundy primarily through his the part of his life between initial arrest and then conviction in Florida, we get to see how suspicion, charm, guilt, doubt and more play out. Efron, too, does a great job of capturing Bundy's charm as well as his arrogance and even showmanship, and towards the end we see glimpses of his true evil. The supporting cast are all excellent, too, with Lily Collins, Kaya Scodelario, Jim Parsons, and John Malkovich. Well worth checking out. It's interesting to see a kind of 'resurgence' in movies about serial killers recently, but ones which take a different view of the subject. Another recent one was "My Friend Dahmer", which I'd also highly recommend viewing, and which detailed the troubled life of Jeffrey Dahmer before his first murder. Back in the early 2000s we had a surge of serial killer movies that focused directly on the killers and the killing (e.g. Ed Gein (x2), Bundy, Gacy, Dahmer (x2), The Hillside Stranglers (x2) etc), with some of them working quite well (e.g. "Ed Gein" starring Steve Railsback) with others coming off as quite exploitative (e.g. the 2002 movie "Bundy" which was later renamed "Ted Bundy") ... so it's good as a viewer to be getting some different angles on familiar stories (another example would be the superb series "Mindhunter", available on Netflix with season 2 coming this year).

[JDP]

I think it has aged quite well. The colony setting was a creepy place, plus I like the suggestion in some parts of the movie that the werewolves can have some type of "telepathic" power to try to influence their intended victims ("Teeeeerry! Oooover here, Terry!") It sure as heck is better than almost all of the werewolf movies that came after it (all The Howling sequels, for example, which were laughable. Not even the presence of a veteran actor like Christopher Lee could have saved any of those sinking ships that started with Howling II.) The Decades Network has been playing all episodes of 100 Years of Horror, with host Christopher Lee. Today they played the episode about werewolves, and this is what Mr. Lee had to say about The Howling II: "My own brush with film lycanthropy was limited to appearing in a film called The Howling II. The less said about that, the better." LOL! Enough said. He knew very well what a stinker that movie was. I guess they must have paid him well for him to agree to be in it. Or maybe in 1985 he desperately needed the money and had little choice but to agree to be in that train wreck of a movie.

[bassman]

^ 100 Years of Horror is a decent little documentary series! I’d just seen it within the last couple of years and loved it! Seems like I’ve seen it available on Prime, as well. Laddie: The Man Behind the Movies Documentary on the life and career of Alan Ladd, Jr., who was born into Hollywood royalty and later went on to take huge leaps of faith with films and filmmakers, leading to many classics that have changed the world. Star Wars, Alien, Blade Runner, and more. In times where studios only wanted guaranteed successes and tended to repeat themselves(like today), Ladd was one of the few to believe in filmmakers with original ideas and would give them the tools to accomplish their vision. It’s a decent little doc about an unsung hero of Tinseltown, I enjoyed it!

[shootemindehead]

'Frances Ha' A low budget and wandering story centred on the pleasant but oddball Sacramento born Frances (a brilliantly charming Greta Gerwig) and her low speed life in New York, where she has to deal with the mundaneness of modern living and working in the city. Frances, a "27" year old dancer - although it's hinted that she's older - is a little touched, but never awful. She seems lost and on an unrecoverable path to nowhere, made worse by her boyfriend dumping her, her best friend Sophie deciding to move out of their flat and the fact that her dancing "career" has been effectively eliminated by her being rolled out of the troupe she's involved in. With little income and nowhere else to go, she returns to her former college to work as a resident's assistant for the summer, while she tries to figure out where to go next. Shot in black and white, Noah Buambach seems to want to emulate the slice of life approach that Woody Allen uses in 'Manhattan', a film it's all too easy to be reminded of when watching 'Frances Ha'. But, Baumbach's film remains its own beast and Gerwig's central performance is always entertaining. Frances is a person who'd be interesting to know, but frustrating at the same time and Gerwig captures that perfectly, whether it's deliberate or accidental. Her support is amply provided by Adam Driver and Michael Zegen as Lev and Benji, a couple of too-cool-for-school buddies Frances has to crash with and Mickey Sumner (Sting's kid) as Frances' bestie, Sophie, who's probably the weakest part of the film. There are some hiccups here and there, largely to do with line delivery, but they don't harm the film, which is a fine low key story about ordinary people's lives. 8/10 I, Daniel Blake My second time with this film and I think it's probably one of Ken Loach's best pictures. That's saying something, when you take his excellent track record in consideration. Another modestly budgeted affair, Loach's film is a naturally bleak story scrutinising the difficulties of a 50 something widower who has to sign onto welfare, because he's suffered a heart attack and cannot return to his job as a joiner. His predicament is made worse by the fact that he's refused any allowance because the deciding officer considers him fit to work, despite his doctor's conflicting report. Daniel is unable to, however, to contest the decision and his appeal must be made electronically and he's no experience with computers. Daniel becomes friends with Katie, a single mother of two kids, who's moved from a homeless shelter London to Newcastle and is finding the transition very difficult. Daniel, who's handy with his hands, helps her around the house fixing items that would otherwise be beyond Katie's knowledge. But, the characters struggles become overwhelming for them. Daniel is forced to sell his modest possessions, because he has no income (and presumably no savings) and Katie is letting her own health slip while trying to her best for the kids. She also has to take extreme measures to find a way to bring in some money. Like most of Loach's films, 'I, Daniel Blake' doesn't pull its punches. But, it doesn't get melodramatic either. It's very straight forward, well told and doesn't try and tired movie tricks to manipulate its audience. The acting is varied, is has to be said, but everyone holds their own and it feels very natural and authentic. 9/10

[EvilNed]

5) Eyeball gets a lot of love from the giallo fanbase, although I've never quite seen why it's so revered. It's a middling giallo, to be frank. I do enjoy it, but it's a good distance away from the best examples of the genre. I recently got the fancy release that 88 Films put out by way of giving it a second chance, and while I enjoyed it a bit more, it was still a middling giallo. 6) The Bloodstained Butterfly is a cracking film. It was nice to discover this one and find a giallo with a different kind of focus (more of a police procedural and legal drama in many ways). A very good film, so it is. I love giallos (I've decided to not use the plural Gialli anymore because... we're not speaking italian, are we?) and I think Eyeball is just a fun ride for me. Not as crazy as Spasmo or Delirium - both of which are bonkers beyond belief, but it's still thoroughly enjoyable. As for Bloodstained Butterfly you really have to be in the mood. Because it's all fashion, mood and style - but the plot is kinda all over the place. There's no main character for one, so we follow several threads at the same time. It works for me, but if I were the least bit tired I'd probably get bored with it. Now that you watched Pumaman(why would you do that to yourself? ) you should consider seeking out the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version on the YouTube’s. Really funny watch. I have seen the MST3K cut and I love it! I heard they did Argoman as well during a live event and would kill for that.

[bassman]

The Fifth Element I’ve seen it many times over the years, having always enjoyed it, so when I saw it was added to Netflix I couldn’t pass it up. I’m glad to say it’s still an immensely enjoyable flick! Perhaps it has something to do with seeing it st just the right age on it’s release, but it holds a special place in my heart and always puts a smile on my face. The opera scene could very well place somewhere in my top ten musical segments of all time. If for some reason there’s someone out there that’s never seen Besson’s space adventure, it’s definitely worth a watch. So much fun!