Rate the last movie you've seen

[paranoid101]

All of us are Dead Netflix Watched all 12 episodes this weekend and It was alright quite good, but they could have cut it done to 8 episode easily, nice to see a Zombie film from a teenage perspective, the acting was good even if it was a bit melodramatic which is a bit over done in the movie but I suppose its more of a Korean way of filming, also with having teenagers theirs the love stories elements with the kids falling out with each other, but it was well filmed, plenty of action, gore, lots of extras to make it seem like the school was really overrun, the Korean way of doing zombies is always fun, it doesn't hold back from killing kids off, making the virus mutate and getting the smarter zombie. Downsides for me were too many near misses with the main characters from getting bit etc, way too much of the kids getting trapped than getting a plan to get to the next place in the school and they ending up trapped again so next episode its the same again getting trapped plan escape trapped repeat, strange comedy bits with the two police guys which felt out of place. Kingdom and Train to Busan are way better Korean Zombie stuff, but this wasn't bad at all. 7/10 Black Friday Not enough budget for what they were going for, also not funny or clever, shame really. 4/10 instead of 3/10 for having Bruce Campbell trying his best.

[paranoid101]

Ummm... Do we need a "Rate the last series you've seen"? yes Dune 2021 Finally got round to seeing this movie, I can safely say I don't really know much about Dune, not read the books, I did see 1984 version of Dune a Long time ago and all I can really Remember about it is Sting's Crotch armour. But now to the 2021 Version and all I can say is wow, this movie looks stunning and the sounds in the soundtrack are fantastic, I did read that Hans Zimmer did the soundtrack and turned down doing Tenet soundtrack to do Dune, I should have known it would be good with Director Denis Villeneuve making the film, he's directed some of my favourite movies like Sicario, Enemy and Arrival. It's got a fantastic cast, really well acted, great movie overall and I'm looking forward to part 2 very much. 9/10

[paranoid101]

Boss Level Amazon Prime This movie is a Action "comedy"? using a Groundhog day premise. It stars Frank Grillo (who seems to be our new B movie star of late), Mel Gibson (probably filmed all his scenes in one day), Michelle Yeoh (probably filmed all her scenes in half a day) and Naomi Watts (maybe needed to make a car payment or something, can't workout why she was in this film). The film does have a bit of a budget and its not bad, its not good either, just a middle of the road film. 5/10

[MinionZombie]

Boss Level Amazon Prime This movie is a Action "comedy"? using a Groundhog day premise. It stars Frank Grillo (who seems to be our new B movie star of late), Mel Gibson (probably filmed all his scenes in one day), Michelle Yeoh (probably filmed all her scenes in half a day) and Naomi Watts (maybe needed to make a car payment or something, can't workout why she was in this film). The film does have a bit of a budget and its not bad, its not good either, just a middle of the road film. 5/10 I just watched Boss Level last night myself! In fact it seems we both watched "Cop Shop" at the same time last week as well. How's that for coincidence? Although I think I enjoyed it more than you. It's from Joe Carnahan, who also directed Cop Shop (which I wasn't that keen on - found it quite middling and a bit of a trudge), but I did find this one to be much more enjoyable. It gets off to a spirited and fun start, but then it gets a bit too talky for a bit too long - however, it does at least give you time to better invest in the main character and the side players. I generally found this one to have far better pacing and balance than Cop Shop, and it did have good action thrown around with some decent black humour scattered about. An interesting bit from the Wiki: In April 2018, Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film.[20] It was scheduled to be released on August 16, 2019,[21] but missed its release date.[22] A special free advance screening of the film, sponsored by entertainment website Collider, was held at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood on February 11, 2020, followed by a Q&A session with Grillo and Carnahan.[23][24] In June 2020, Entertainment Studios dropped the film.[3][22] In November 2020, the U.S. distribution rights were acquired in an eight-figure deal by Hulu,[25] which was later revealed to be worth $11,750,000.[26] The film was released on March 5, 2021.[27] In July 2021 Blumhouse Productions sued the producers of the film for breach of contract. Blumhouse asserts that they were brought in to recut the film after the original version failed to secure distribution, but have not been compensated for their work, which was to be 5% of the acquisition fee paid by Hulu. Blumhouse also sued Hulu for continuing to stream their cut of the film after being sent multiple cease and desist notices. It's not a gamechanger by any means, and has kind of got lost in the pack while other films like Free Guy have really risen to the top, and I will admit that I've had "Boss Level" sat on my Prime watch list for months and months at this point, but I saw a positive take on it from The Critical Drinker and figured I'd give it a go and ended up quite enjoying it. A solid 6.5 to 7/10. A fun watch.

[paranoid101]

I just watched Boss Level last night myself! In fact it seems we both watched "Cop Shop" at the same time last week as well. How's that for coincidence? Although I think I enjoyed it more than you. It's from Joe Carnahan, who also directed Cop Shop (which I wasn't that keen on - found it quite middling and a bit of a trudge), but I did find this one to be much more enjoyable. It gets off to a spirited and fun start, but then it gets a bit too talky for a bit too long - however, it does at least give you time to better invest in the main character and the side players. I generally found this one to have far better pacing and balance than Cop Shop, and it did have good action thrown around with some decent black humour scattered about. An interesting bit from the Wiki: It's not a gamechanger by any means, and has kind of got lost in the pack while other films like Free Guy have really risen to the top, and I will admit that I've had "Boss Level" sat on my Prime watch list for months and months at this point, but I saw a positive take on it from The Critical Drinker and figured I'd give it a go and ended up quite enjoying it. A solid 6.5 to 7/10. A fun watch. I don't think we have agreed on a film score that we have both watched yet lol

[Neil]

Wrath of Man (2021) - Jason Stratham / Guy Ritchie Painfully controved with some teeth clenching dialog- Doesn't bode well for Operation Fortune with these two involved coming out soon. 4.5/10

[MinionZombie]

Wrath of Man (2021) - Jason Stratham / Guy Ritchie Painfully controved with some teeth clenching dialog- Doesn't bode well for Operation Fortune with these two involved coming out soon. 4.5/10 I think part of the problem with Wrath of Man was that it was a remake of an existing movie, and Ritchie was only one of a smattering of writers on it, so it wasn't really his voice by any means ... it's one of the least Guy Ritchie Guy Ritchie movies that Guy Ritchie has ever made. Even his direction felt fairly anonymous on the movie. Not sure why he did it, really. Considering it's the exact same screenwriting team of three for Operation Fortune, it does indeed not bode spectacularly well - but you never know. Maybe if it's more of an original product (rather than a remake), it'll feel more like a GR movie. Interestingly, the exact same team configured the story for The Gentlemen (plus a story editor), which was really good fun, but the difference is that Ritchie wrote the screenplay by himself.

[Neil]

I think part of the problem with Wrath of Man was that it was a remake of an existing movie, and Ritchie was only one of a smattering of writers on it, so it wasn't really his voice by any means ... it's one of the least Guy Ritchie Guy Ritchie movies that Guy Ritchie has ever made. Even his direction felt fairly anonymous on the movie. Not sure why he did it, really. Considering it's the exact same screenwriting team of three for Operation Fortune, it does indeed not bode spectacularly well - but you never know. Maybe if it's more of an original product (rather than a remake), it'll feel more like a GR movie. Interestingly, the exact same team configured the story for The Gentlemen (plus a story editor), which was really good fun, but the difference is that Ritchie wrote the screenplay by himself. Ahh! Thanks for all that... Wasn't aware of it. It just felt like it was trying ever so hard to be clever, but the dialog, actors and movie were just dialing it in and, to be honest, empty and tedious! Hopefully Operation Fortune will resemble The Gentlemen and not Wrath of Man...

[MinionZombie]

Ahh! Thanks for all that... Wasn't aware of it. It just felt like it was trying ever so hard to be clever, but the dialog, actors and movie were just dialing it in and, to be honest, empty and tedious! Hopefully Operation Fortune will resemble The Gentlemen and not Wrath of Man... Hopefully! While I did enjoy Wrath of Man over all (I never really found myself bored by it), it was fairly anonymous and a bit generic in some regards. The dialogue was indeed quite ropey, especially the attempt at locker room banter, which just crunched like a fucked-out old gearbox ... trying to sound macho, but failing. It had some decent action in it, and Statham always has a lot of screen presence, and I did enjoy seeing Holt McCallany (Mindhunter) on screen as well.

[MinionZombie]

High Rise A third viewing for me, having just finished reading JG Ballard's book. If there's a movie adaptation, I always like to watch it soon after reading the book to see how the screenwriter (in this case Amy Jump) did their version - what they kept, what they tweaked etc. I really enjoy this movie, probably Ben Wheatley's best film to date IMHO. There's some interesting changes from the book that shape the characters a little more, such as Laing now being the sole surviving member of his family (in the book his sister lives in the same building), while Charlotte Melville is a very small lightly sketched character in the book she's got a meatier role in the film. In the book there's an incident where a Jeweller takes a high dive from one of the top floors (whether it's suicide or murder is never really answered), but it's kind of just one of a series of events that make up the gradual collapse of civil society within the high rise, whereas in the film it's changed to a student of Laing's who needs taking down a peg or two, so Laing lies about finding something in a brain scan: the student, an arrogant rich boy, gets drunk and kills himself by jumping from the 39th floor. There's a tighter narrative in the film than in the book, but this is often the case. The book more gives you the feeling of the main protagonists amidst the chaos, whereas the film actually has to have a clear structure so certain elements have been added to help guide it. However, there is a lot of detail taken from the book and scattered throughout. So it's an impressive adaptation, with superb design and a dark sense of wit with spot-on performances.

[MinionZombie]

Last Man Down A Swedish action flick set in the wake of a pandemic. A big dude with muscles kills the wife of another dude with big muscles, who then becomes a lonely woodsman until a woman whose blood is the key to curing the virus turns up on his doorstep. Vengeful action ensues. I had been looking forward to it, but woof ... awful dialogue desperately trying to sound 'action movie profound' (oftentimes it feels like nonsequiters, other times you can't understand what's being said due to the grumbly voices and wavering pronunciations due to English evidently being a second or third language), a clunky story that has nothing new to offer (and even less internal logic), and even the action feels a bit flat. Few sequences feel choreographed, so it's often just random smatterings of quickly shot violence (seems there was no real time or budget for proper special effects, squibs, blood hits etc), and the film takes too long to get revved up - and once it does it just kinda pootles along. The on-screen players all have the physique for the movie, but none have the acting chops (yet, at least), which makes it all the more baffling why so much dialogue has been written for people who don't have the training to convincingly deliver it. It's also curious that all these hardened and professional soldiers are all using iron sights exclusively, no opticals anywhere. There's mounts on some of the weapons for such things, but for some reason everyone insists on just going old school lining up two bits of metal. The ending hopes for a sequel, but, in the words of Neil - oh dear!

[Neil]

Last Man Down ...The ending hopes for a sequel, but, in the words of Neil - oh dear! Oh dear

[MinionZombie]

What's Eating Gilbert Grape I've been hearing this movie title name-dropped all over the place in movies and TV shows for years now, and I stumbled across it on Prime and gave it a looksee. It's a quirky indie drama from the 1990s, so it's got that vibe going for it. Interesting story and characters. I quite enjoyed it. Cat Burglar From Charlie Brooker, this Tex Avery-esque interactive cartoon has just hit Netflix. You have to pick the right choices to help a cat burglar (who's also a cat) successfully heist art from a museum. There's six different paintings to steal, and each play through gives you different scenes. I've done two of them so far. Really good fun and really nails the style - the music in particular.

[JDP]

The Devil's Rain (1975): This is one of the weirdest film entries in the "Satanic" boom of the 1970s. It also features a most curious and unusual cast: Ernest Borgnine, William Shatner (WTF?), Eddie Albert, Ida Lupino, Tom Skerritt, Keenan Wynn, John Travolta (WTF??? this was actually BEFORE Welcome Back, Kotter), plus none other than the founders of The Church of Satan themselves!: Anton LaVey (both playing a Satanic High Priest in the movie as well as being the "Technical Advisor" for the film) and Diane LaVey. Where can you find Captain Kirk fighting a cult of Satanists? Only in the 70s, baby, only in the 70s...

[MinionZombie]

Hell On The Border Awful. Just fucking awful. I only managed to get about 42 minutes in and had to abandon it as it was just so frustratingly bad. Based on the true story of a black Marshall in the 19th century, but he might as well be a silent passenger in his own damn story, because there's endless scenes of white guys posturing about race relations in terribly clunky exchanges that feel like the local Am-Dram society is high on the belief they're doing great work that'll sweep the Oscars. The atrocious script (awful dialogue, terrible structure, plodding pace) is only one of the film's considerable flaws, because not only is the editing terrible, but the shootout sequences are handled very poorly (you don't really know what's happening most of the time), and that's not even the end of it. The constant use of intrusive music gets real old real quick, while the sound recording is as muddy and muffled as the actors' mumbling pronunciation, and to cap it all off the cinematography is dreadful: evidently digital, it clashes with the 1875 setting, and the camera is constantly wiggling all over the place. Even in moments that are supposed to be 'static', the camera feels like it's shimmying about on a loose camera mount or as if we're viewing the movie through the eyes of a stoned bobblehead. The money must have been good enough to rope in Frank Grillo and Ron Perlman, good enough for them not to bother reading the script ... I mean, damn, I was just floored by how poorly made this movie was. The budget, cobbled together from myriad production companies you've probably never heard of, didn't seem to stretch very far beyond. Considering how hard it can be to break into the industry and to then get a project off the ground, it's actually quite insulting that shite like this actually gets made.