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

mnkykungfu

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DigModiFicaTion said:
Avatar (2009)
A pretty good story packaged in a bright colorful cgi package. Years later I don't see why people loved this movie but hated John Carter. Yes the acting was better in Avatar, the cast was better in Avatar and the lead was at least likable, but the story is pretty much on par, imho. It will be interesting to see what the next Avatar movies do to a story that perhaps should be left as is. 7/10

Well, all blue alien movies are not created equal.  ;)

Actually, I think there's probably a long conversation to be had about this re: promotion.  Avatar was destination cinema.  It became a cultural touchstone, and was just a snowball rolling downhill.  Very hard to duplicate that kind of phenomenon, which I suspect the sequels will find out.
 

suspiciouscoffee

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Heaven’s War aka Beyond the Darkness is without a doubt the worst movie I’ve ever seen.
 

Moe_Syzlak

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Has anyone seen High Life? I don’t know if I’m missing something in the search function but searching for “high life” doesn’t help. I’m not sure what to say about this movie. It’s difficult to describe and it’s almost dreamlike time watch. I hesitate to describe any of the plot as the way things are revealed contribute to the dreamlike feeling.
 

TM2YC

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Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes (2018)
The Jazz in this Blue Note label retrospective is of course brilliant, the old recordings and new studio time with Robert Glasper and co but the best bit for me was the artwork and photos. They found the original unedited cover stills, so they were able to seamlessly compare them to the iconic finished pieces, cut in time with the music. It doesn't even matter that actual video of the performers is rare, the photo montages are so well combined with the studio chatter that it feels like you are watching the musicians work.

 

Jrzag42

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I just watched The Claire Wizard Thesis.
I have no intention of ever watching The Blair Witch Project, I know the basic gist, I'm not interested. But I thought a parody could be funny. And it was!
It was about an amateur director thinking he could make the same movie and have it be just as successful. It's about the making of a Blair Witch esque movie rather than showing the film itself, as the director's brothers films behind the scenes. It's a comedy mockumentary with no attempt at horror or a horror asthetic.
I genuinely laughed at many points, and I think it was well made. Way better and different than I was expecting. It's not perfect, but I'd definitely watch it again.
 

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suspiciouscoffee said:
MV5BMGQyYzM3YmMtMmRkMi00ZTUxLTk0MzUtMWExYzQ4NjZlYTZkXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyOTQyNjkzNjc@._V1_UY1200_CR95,0,630,1200_AL_.jpg


Heaven’s War aka Beyond the Darkness is without a doubt the worst movie I’ve ever seen.

I can't believe anyone could make a worse film than Coleman Francis. I won't believe it.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)
I got this one for $1 the other day and gave it a chance due to Asa Butterfield starring in it. This is basically Tim Burton's interpretation of X-Men. The story isn't anything to write home about and the peculiar children are basically caricatures of marvel's mutants. When the story finally starts to come together it's very broadcasted. There's a cracked out homage to Ray Harryhausen with a certain effect near the climax, but the music during this scene is just plain...Burton-ish. If you like Tm Burton and the idea of mutants mixed with a Harry Potter vibe you'll probably like this movie. Asa couldn't save this one for me. I'm hoping he gets a chance to expand his acting and move beyond the insecure boy turned not quite believable hero type-cast. 5/10
 

TM2YC

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Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (2019)
Martin Scorsese takes a ton of amazing footage shot for Bob Dylan's little seen 1978 tour film 'Renaldo and Clara' and turns it into a seemingly more conventional 2.5-hour Netflix Documentary. Dylan's performances of songs like 'Isis', 'Simple Twist of Fate' and 'Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door' are stunning, he's singing with real fire in his belly. We also get to hear poetry from Allen Ginsberg and a paralytic Patti Smith.

It was only after I'd finished watching that I read many of the stories from the tour that we hear are entirely fictional, backed up by faked photos and actors. Your experience of viewing the film will be altered and arguably enhanced by not knowing this beforehand. Scorsese and Dylan obviously haven't lost their taste for mischief in their old age.


The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot (2018)
I love a good flashback-flashforward structure but it doesn't work for this film, it's feels random and compromises the pacing at the end. It was a terrific idea, take a b-movie schlock premise and play it like you seriously want the Academy Award. Sam Elliott gives his all in the sympathetic title role but the disjointed film doesn't back him up. The gaping holes in the logic of the 2nd half of the plot don't help either.

 

Masirimso17

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Okay so @"TM2YC" and @"Gaith" one of the subjects of my little cousin’s English exam was Alan Turing, so I thought it was a great opportunity to watch The Imitation Game, perfect for her to learn history and be readier for the exam, and for me to see what all the fuss was about. I personally really enjoyed the movie and didn’t mind the historical inaccuracies. Sure it was a bit of an embellishment. But I appreciate it if it is in contribution to the themes and story. I found them to be interesting and thought provoking connecting to the themes of secrecy, deception, and the “imitation game” of war. I don’t know the real story of Turing in such deep detail but for me the embellishments added to the story and worth discussing the deviations after the movie. I dunno. I really liked it. Also I did not think the dialogue was jaw dropping at all, I don’t get where you got that?
 

DigModiFicaTion

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Shazam! (2019)
A welcomed shift in the DC catalog. This movie felt like a nod to the fans and movie goers in its parody of the DC films. It could have and probably should have been PG as it's obviously aimed at the young audience. Perhaps a slight trim of the more grotesque moments to make it such is in the future. For all of its ridiculousness, I still found myself laughing outloud more than a few times and enjoying the absurdity. Not on the same level as Ragnarok, but I can't really see why I'd give anything less than a 7/10.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
Not sure how I feel about this one. It wasn't great, but it certainly wasn't bad. They really messed with the traditional Spider-Man in this one. I wish it wouldn't have taken the turn it did so that we could have more clarity on future directions between Sony and Disney Spider-Man. The credits scene cameo was fun, but I ultimately wasn't a fan with where this takes the character. While Tom Holland may slightly edge out Toby Maguire's portrayal of Peter Parker, this new iteration is yet to reach the levels of Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2's story telling and faithfulness. An ultimately lackluster villain with missed opportunities to take this to a new realm that ultimately felt like an extension of Disney Spider-Man's origin story. As a result I give it a conflicted 7/10.
 

mnkykungfu

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DigModiFicaTion said:
Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
Not sure how I feel about this one. It wasn't great, but it certainly wasn't bad. They really messed with the traditional Spider-Man in this one. I wish it wouldn't have taken the turn it did so that we could have more clarity on future directions between Sony and Disney Spider-Man. The credits scene cameo was fun, but I ultimately wasn't a fan with where this takes the character. While Tom Holland may slightly edge out Toby Maguire's portrayal of Peter Parker, this new iteration is yet to reach the levels of Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2's story telling and faithfulness. An ultimately lackluster villain with missed opportunities to take this to a new realm that ultimately felt like an extension of Disney Spider-Man's origin story. As a result I give it a conflicted 7/10.

7/10 sounds about right to me.  It's funny, I pretty much agree with everything you're saying, but I find myself mentally defending all these decisions.  I think this probably has more to do with the generation we're in (I'm "Gen-X") and with expectations.

For instance, when Marvel got Spidey back, everyone my age was like "ugggh, another Spider-Man reboot?!  I'm so over it!  Do another hero!"  There was a big push to do something different, take one of the new Spidey spin-offs where the character is female or a minority, for example.

So Marvel didn't give us another origin story.  They did give us the original Spidey, but possibly the most faithful to the spirit of the original, where he's really young, and he looks up to the established heroes and wants to impress them but is insecure (the Fantastic Four originally).  They also make him more relevant to the comics of the past decade by showing the mentorship with Tony Stark and the influence of that tech on Peter, really playing up that angle.  So can we blame them for not repeating themselves and for making this Spider-Man relevant to today's stories?

I also feel like if you showed this to someone who just watched Homecoming and the last 2 Avengers films and didn't see any trailers and hadn't read any comics, then the big reveal works just fine.  Of course no comics fans have any doubt about that story element, and a savvy movie-goer would get too much from the trailers not to be suspicious, but I really have to just judge the film on its own merits.  I thought it was done quite well, and a nice update on a classic character.  

These aren't really the Spider-Man movies I was expecting to see, but they basically gave me what I wanted with Spider-Man 1, at the time.  I can accept these new movies for being the "Spidey in the context of the great MCU" films, which is something very cool I never got to see before.  So there's that anyway.
 

suspiciouscoffee

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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - 7/10

Overwrought 1990s EU energy. Dumb on paper, but I felt the vibe so it worked for me, but I get why this one doesn’t work for a lot of people. But I love The Last Jedi so much that I went in with the mindset that this was essentially a bonus track for me anyway.
 

Siliconmaster

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suspiciouscoffee said:
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - 7/10

Overwrought 1990s EU energy. Dumb on paper, but I felt the vibe so it worked for me, but I get why this one doesn’t work for a lot of people. But I love The Last Jedi so much that I went in with the mindset that this was essentially a bonus track for me anyway.

That's so funny, because as someone who grew up with 90s EU books it felt like they were taking the dumbest ideas from the old stories and mashing them all together as much as possible. If anything, the EU was more consistent overall, somehow.  :rolleyes:
 

Duragizer

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Moe_Syzlak said:
Duragizer said:
Battlefield Earth (2000)

It stinks.

3/10

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My OCD compels me to seek out and rewatch every single movie, short film, miniseries, and TV episode I last watched before 15 June 2016. It can be quite the pain in the ass, especially when it comes to watching crud like this.
 

Duragizer

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asterixsmeagol said:
That's a very specific date

That's the last time I revised the criterion by which I evaluate the stuff I've watched. The first film I watched under the present system was Raising Arizona, and thanks to IMDb, I was able to find the date I watched it.

Like I said, OCD's a pain in the ass.
 

Moe_Syzlak

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Two Popes.

Full disclosure: I‘m in Rome. I was in the Sistine Chapel today. I was in Piazza San Pietro today. I will see Pope Francis give his Christmas address there day after tomorrow. My father is very Catholic. And ... I’m an atheist.

I loved this movie. Such great work from both Hopkins and Pryce. A movie that could make me feel sympathetic towards Benedict is pretty incredible. I highly recommend this movie. It takes one of the most monumental moments and shifts in the history of modern religion and makes it a personal character study.

As a side note, the ages of young actor Bergoglio and Pryce’s Bergoglio are separated by a mere 14 years, with a younger actor playing the role up to age 48. It worked so much better for me than the digital de-aging did in The Irishman.
 
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