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The Last Movie(s) You Watched... (quick one or two sentence reviews)

DigModiFicaTion

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Catch Me If You Can (2002)
I love John Williams' score for this movie. He definitely borrowed the sound of this one for his Tin Tin score years later. Not really a fan of DiCaprio in this one or much of any of the cast. They do a good job, but the story doesn't really allow for much development. Everything is pretty surface deep and backstory is heavily implied, but never fully explored. This isn't the goal of the movie as it's more a look at how Abagnale becomes the James Bond of the sky and eludes the FBI during his check fraud spree. Lots of big stars before they were big stars in this one. I give it a thin 6/10
 

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I just watched Jackie Brown for the second time, and I really just love this movie.
 

TM2YC

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Nashville (1975)
5 days and nights following 24 characters (played by an all-star cast) in Nashville during the build up to a post-Kennedy era political rally/concert. The comic, tragic and bizarre incidents of their lives are swiftly inter-cut, almost at random, interspersed with musical performances and the omnipresent drone of a politician reciting election slogans. It's all very good but 2.5 hours is a lot of random, with no real plot, sapping the momentum in the middle.

 

The Scribbling Man

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Muppets Wizard of Oz

Me within the first 30 seconds:
I-immediately-regret-this-decision-anchorman.gif
 

Duragizer

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Brightburn (2019)

Elizabeth Banks is very good, but she can't save the film from the pacing — which is too fast — or the antagonist — who is a 1-dimensional psychopath with no motivation or internal conflict.

5/10
 

Collipso

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Once Upon A Time... in Hollywood

after dragging for a little bit, this is one of my favorite tarantino movies. i want to rewatch it on the weekend, but after digesting it for a bit, it might be my favorite.
 

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Collipso said:
Once Upon A Time... in Hollywood

after dragging for a little bit, this is one of my favorite tarantino movies. i want to rewatch it on the weekend, but after digesting it for a bit, it might be my favorite.

just rewatched it and it's def my favorite. maybe half an hour too long, but i love it. i'll watch it a third time next week with my mom.
 

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Diabolique (1955)

I wish I'd never watched the American remake before this version. Not only because the remake's ass, but because the plots of both versions are 99% identical. It's hard to truly enjoy a film when you know how it's going to unfold in advance. Beautiful cinematography, regardless.

7/10
 

suspiciouscoffee

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Aladdin (2019) - 3/10

Very bad, but not even in any interesting way. I was watching with my brother and we were planning to riff it, but we didn’t even have anything to say, we were just bored; wishing we were watching the 1992 one instead.
 

mnkykungfu

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Masirimso17 said:
DigModiFicaTion said:
Return of the Jedi (1983)
Watching it with the littles made me see George Lucas' Star Wars for the very first time. I get why he chose ewoks and even Jar Jar.

Personally my problem with Jar-Jar isn’t that he’s annoying. I can appreciate something that makes kids laugh (besides the poop jokes of course). My problem is that Phantom Menace has an inconsistent tone which constantly clashes with each other. On one side we have heavy boring political conversations and on the other we have Jar-Jar. It is possible for a movie to balance these out, but unfortunately Phantom Menace fails and brings us a very uneven tone.

That’s the movie critic talking of course. Kids enjoy it so I’m fine with it.

EDIT: Plus people who grew up with Phantom Menace and Jar Jar now have a nostalgic love towards him regardless of how funny/unfunny/annoying he can get or of the uneven tone.

This is a really good point, Masirimso17.  Look, I grew up with the original trilogy and I'm not as keen on the prequels.  But I find myself having to defend them a lot against the bottomless loathing and vitriol a lot of people have.  Like, I'd still prefer to watch the Ewok movies over half of the movies in theaters on any given week!  The prequels are not nearly on the level some put them at, it's just that hell hath no fury like a disappointed fanboy.  Yes, boy.  The girls almost never seem so butthurt about them.  The realistic approach is to say what you said, that they have a lot of (actually quite intricate and realistic!) political intrigue that most people just zone out to because they're distracted by the 
A) bad comedy
B) bad romance
C) cheesy dialogue
or 
D) stiff green-screen performances
[and E- now outdated CGI...oooh, that Geonosis table scene...]

Just a very unbalanced delivery that begs for fanedits to focus on the good.  :)  There's a lot to like in those movies, and it's eye-opening to watch them with people who didn't grow up with the Original Trilogy...they tend to find the old ones too cheesy and rough-looking!
 

TM2YC

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Walkabout (1971)
A depressed city father drives teenage schoolgirl Jenny Agutter and her 6-year old brother (played by Director Nicholas Roeg's own son) deep into the Australian outback for a picnic but shoots himself and burns the car. Facing death in the desert, the pair befriend an aboriginal teen who shows them how to survive in the brutality, beauty and poetry of nature. The sequence with Agutter swimming naked, inter-cut with the boy hunting and killing animals, soundtracked by John Barry's beautiful score is quite something.

 

Masirimso17

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suspiciouscoffee said:
Aladdin (2019) - 3/10

Very bad, but not even in any interesting way. I was watching with my brother and we were planning to riff it, but we didn’t even have anything to say, we were just bored; wishing we were watching the 1992 one instead.

Huh. Personally I realy enjoyed it.
 

mnkykungfu

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As part of my ongoing observation of the Japanese holiday of O-bon this month:

Hara Kiri (1962)- a classic.  Kind of a leisurely, self-indulgent story about samurai life in the beginning of the Edo era, but gets richer as it approaches the big climax.  Pretty cool in principle, as it puts the lie to the typical portrayal of the honorable samurai.  However, if you're looking for skilled, well-choreographed swordfights, look elsewhere.

Shusho Iwai (The Wolves - 1971)- directed by Hideo Gosha, considered a master, there were a fair few choices in his style that didn't work for me.  Tarantino clearly saw this tale of two warring Yakuza gangs and cribbed some of the style, but a lot of the performances were either far too stilted or far too over-the-top for me.  If you want to see lots of dudes holding swords or knives and wrestling instead of demonstrating the slightest familiarity with them, this is for you!  Also, has the absolute most crap looking beach, which for some reason Gosha wants to put in every shot.

Mr. Baseball (1992)- An American/Japanese co-production, Tom Seleck basically plays Don Mattingly getting old and getting transferred to the Chunichi Dragons baseball team in Nagoya, Japan.  The film nails a lot of the cultural idiosyncracies, but takes a big swing and a miss at it's portrayal of Japanese women.  Plus it feels super cheap.  A possible career low point score from Jerry Goldsmith.  

Berserk: The Golden Age trilogy (2012-2013)- These three movies are fairly short (the first two are under 90 minutes each) but basically retell the old animated series adapted from the medieval manga story.  The animation is a gorgeous blend of traditional and computer-assisted, and the voice talent is on point.  I missed the time that was taken in the original series to flesh out the main characters' back stories and motivations, as well as the luxury of being able to devote a full episode (20 min) to portray an epic battle.  However, the adaptation is well-done and tasteful, and adapts a bit more of the manga than the original series.  I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to see a Count of Monte Cristo type story with slight supernatural elements.
 

TM2YC

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mnkykungfu said:
As part of my ongoing observation of the Japanese holiday of O-bon this month:

Well in that case allow me to shamelessly self-promote a 15-minute Karate Kid II short I made set during o-bon ;) :

https://ifdb.fanedit.org/matcha-to-bon-odori-green-tea-and-the-spirit-dance/


mnkykungfu said:
Hara Kiri (1962)- a classic.  Kind of a leisurely, self-indulgent story about samurai life in the beginning of the Edo era, but gets richer as it approaches the big climax.  Pretty cool in principle, as it puts the lie to the typical portrayal of the honorable samurai.  However, if you're looking for skilled, well-choreographed swordfights, look elsewhere.

One of my favourite Samurai films. The 2011 Takashi Miike remake doesn't quite cut it somehow.
 

mnkykungfu

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TM2YC said:
mnkykungfu said:
As part of my ongoing observation of the Japanese holiday of O-bon this month:

Well in that case allow me to shamelessly self-promote a 15-minute Karate Kid II short I made set during o-bon ;) :

https://ifdb.fanedit.org/matcha-to-bon-odori-green-tea-and-the-spirit-dance/

mnkykungfu said:
Hara Kiri (1962)- a classic.  Kind of a leisurely, self-indulgent story about samurai life in the beginning of the Edo era, but gets richer as it approaches the big climax.  Pretty cool in principle, as it puts the lie to the typical portrayal of the honorable samurai.  However, if you're looking for skilled, well-choreographed swordfights, look elsewhere.

One of my favourite Samurai films. The 2011 Takashi Miike remake doesn't quite cut it somehow.

Nice!  I freakin' love the Karate Kid Part II.  I've watched it easily 50 times.  
I haven't watched the remake of Hara Kiri.  I saw that it was pretty well-received, particularly in terms of cinematography and for updating the climax to be more visceral.  I suppose it really all hangs on the main performance though.  Miike generally doesn't work for me, and I'm still trying to find the gems in his extensive career.  DOA is up next.
 

TM2YC

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mnkykungfu said:
Miike generally doesn't work for me, and I'm still trying to find the gems in his extensive career.  DOA is up next.

I can highly recommend '13 Assassins' and 'Blade of the Immortal' (the former is a fairly traditional Samurai film, the latter adds in all kinds of crazy supernatural stuff to the formula) but I've not watched many of his many films.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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Ant-Man (2015)
Nothing special here. A few scenes that are interesting, but this is your run of the mill origin film with a recycled bad guy story line. The humor and characters were pretty shallow to ever really take the story seriously. I give the movie the same rating as I would Evangeline Lilly's haircut, a 5.5/10

Started watching Ant-Man and the Wasp, and they seem to have increased the ridiculous B-roll type humor....at least Evangeline Lilly's hair looks better in this one....

The Three Musketeers (1993)
This film is pure nostalgia for me. It's cheesy, but never overly-so. The fencing is decent and the actors play their parts well enough to create a memorable experience, even if they aren't truly embodying the characters. Athos is my favorite character in this rendition with Sutherland's moody/gruff but loyal portrayal of the character. Curry is a creep as the cardinal and it suits the character just fine. This film has certainly aged, but most of that is due to the various Musketeer productions that have come after it which create a rival to the way characters are presented. Still, a fun outing 26 years later. 7/10
 

mnkykungfu

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Wow, guess I'm the only one who was pleasantly surprised by Ant-Man.  A small time comic book character that no one was expecting to be the next Spider-Man, and a power set that is.... less than compelling.  Yet they hit all the right notes with me, and had a lot of very creative set pieces.  The humor really clicked, from the battle on a train set to Luis' retelling of stories.  Plus, he's a genuinely positive, hopeful guy, not a cynical jerk like Iron Man or Dr. Strange.  2nd one also had a lot of joyous moments, creativity, and sight gags, though not as well-put-together as the first.  Still, I'd take these compared to any non-MCU superhero movie any day of the week.  We've been spoiled in this genre for the past 10 years.
 
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