Last Movie You Watched Thread

Joined: 11 Nov 2005 Posts: 8693

I just watched Foxy Brown, and it was really good. The best part was definitely the unexpected dope-em-up-and-rape-em interlude that seemed like it was beamed-in from another movie entirely. My one complaint is that most of the blaxploitation movies I've seen end with the hero(ine) teaming-up with a bunch of black power advocates for the big showdown, which is all well and good I suppose but I would much rather some sort of insane Get Carter-style loony infiltrating a New York penthouse solo. Although I guess there's kind of that, too.

Anyway I really liked it! Gonna go buy Coffy/rent The Warriors.

Joined: 17 Jan 2006 Posts: 742

roquentin wrote:

SNARK! (boojum?) wrote:

Chocolate, by the directors of Ong-Bak, had some of the most delightful choreography I've ever seen. It's a movie about an autistic girl who is a savant in kicking ass, and as silly as that premise is, it was delivered upon. The main character is incredibly likable, and even though she completely disintegrates throng after throng of henchpeople, it's somehow okay because violence seems to be all she understands.

i love ong-bak, so i should see this, yes?

YES

Joined: 14 Jan 2009 Posts: 1205

Had too much time and not enough energy for Real Things lately, so uh

The Quiet Earth

This is a creepy little thing, isn't it? Shades of 28 Days Later and probably I Am Legend, which I've not seen in case Will Smith Will Smith's it up, with a lot of "Cold War Bad" and "Racial Harmony Good" stuff that seems a little confusing to me now because I think there's some New Zealand-specific race-relations that I'm not quite getting.

Also cross dressing, guns, pissing about in cars, fair matte effects and the most hysterical radioactive corpse I have seen in a while.

The 'Burbs

Carrie Fisher can act. That much is clear. What is not clear is why she is only allowed in films where acting is not really required.

Also: Bruce Dern. He got old.

Silent Running

Not bad, but a lot of Bruce Derning. Made me want to go Go-Karting, also surprised me with the attention to detail (but I guess when your cast is four guys and some amputees in robot suits, there's plenty of time to get the little things right) and the catsuit-spacesuit, which I thought was a Star Trek innovation.

THX 1138 (Director's Cut)

This is a good movie, but I'm not sure how it differs from the original, and other than that I was really just surprised Donald Pleasence didn't die horribly.

Also I'm tempted to just be the unichapel on that anonymous chat business.

The Time Machine (2002)

WHO IS THIS AIMED AT

ALSO PUT SOME CLOTHES ON

OTHERWISE COMPETENT

Blade Runner (Director's Cut)

The version I remember ends with a minivan. I don't know if it really does or if I just lost interest, but this one seems to hang together better. It's still not great, but it is subtle, like when the computer extrapolates 3D from a 2D image. Later on I was having trouble separating it from Farscape mentally, and then it seemed to drag on a little. Really that is my problem with it, that so much has been imitated, homaged or just plained ripped off it in the past three decades that it doesn't seem as original anymore. I'm sort of concerned that an AVP-style franchise breeder will be announced with The Fifth Element.

Harrison Ford looks so young in this.

Joined: 11 Nov 2005 Posts: 8693

The 'Burbs was one of my favourite movies when I was a kid. I have no idea if it was good or not, mind.

Also, The Time Machine! I saw that in theatres! The part where he is actually traveling though time is great, but the film and I part ways at Samantha Mumba and wise old morlocks. And heterogeneous isolated cave-tribes? What?

I do love the broken moon, though.

Joined: 14 Jan 2009 Posts: 1205

That is a sweet moon, and it's not wasted in the narrative, which I liked.

I was sort of wishing by the end that he got it together with 2030's Bicycle Girl and turned it into a fish-out-of-water romantic comedy though.

Joined: 23 Oct 2007 Posts: 1775

I watched Doubt and now I'm hyper-aware of my fingernails.

Joined: 25 Jul 2008 Posts: 6011

Frosty the Snowman $$$$$$

Joined: 23 Feb 2008 Posts: 3669 Location: Wham City

you guys

Primer.

what.
what.
what.

Joined: 25 Jul 2008 Posts: 6011

No$ebleed$

Joined: 23 Feb 2008 Posts: 3669 Location: Wham City

okay I watched it again and now we are down to just

what

Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 5464 Location: dino zone

that doesn't go away i don't think

there is no oh

so good though

Joined: 23 Feb 2008 Posts: 3669 Location: Wham City

D:

but still

Very Happy

Joined: 14 Jan 2009 Posts: 1205

the saturday option wrote:

Frosty the Snowman $$$$$$

Still knackered

still watching crap films

Hellboy 2

Will Smith's in the next one, isn't he?

Isn't he.

The Black Hole (1979)

Well I'm inclined to agree with Philip K. Dick on this one, purely as a knee jerk reaction

but

there are several points where I was checking the time remaining and thinking "Hmm, 30 minutes to go... this is 30 minutes too long" but then uncannily the thing picks itself up again within 30 seconds. Weird.

V.I.N.CENT. Hmm. That really is a dementedly bad puppet, isn't it? Why even make a smashed up version and call it "Bob"? (it's a sassy floating R2D2 with the voice of KITT on a Space: 1999 style spaceship)

Nevertheless there are some interesting conceits, Ernest Borgnine's weightlessness bit is a joy to behold, not least because it just gets dumped three minutes into the movie and picked up largely at random later on, and the chronic over and under acting by the main cast means that Roddy McDowell and Slim Pickens get all the emotional scenes as two animate vacuum cleaners.

By the end I wanted to have been a Disney editor thirty years ago so I could have turned this turd down if not around, but then I would probably have just put in more of the only female crewmember in all of space, who also happens to be telepathic, but only to one particular robot, and otherwise a bit dim enjoying herself on the vibrating set at the end.

Seriously, Disney, wtf. I realise this was a point when you were turning movies into rides and not the other way around, but wtf.

Oh, also they ripped off a load of Star Wars and Star Trek: The Motion Picture but it was 1979 so that was the thing you did. At least it's not Saturn 3.

Joined: 11 Nov 2005 Posts: 8693

I like The Black Hole because it's clear throughout that no-one involved in the production had any idea what they were doing. And then at the end people got to a weird sort of dualist hell?

I watched some movies these last few days, I did.

Ne Touchez Pas La Hache - Woo Jacques Rivette. I read the short story before watching this and thought "Ah yes, there are so many things in this that would be excellent for the man to tackle!" and then he tackled none of them and spent all his time deconstructing the process of acting and staging a film. I mean, you'd think he would have thrown more into the "Playing a hopelessly romantic part, rather than just being sensible" angle, given this, but nope. Lots of irony, though. In the end I enjoyed this but I think that may have to do with my being a little bit in love with Jeanne Balibar.

The Company of Wolves - pretty neat adaptation of the short story, although the ending was different from what I remember (and, in fact, seemed to change the meaning of the proceedings more than a bit). It looks beautiful, though.

Jubilee - Queen Elizabeth I travels forward in time to the punk era in London, and then follows around a murderous gang of teenage girls. It's all very obvious I suppose but a lot of fun, what with the nihilist "burn history" pyromaniac" punk, and the "No! History must be understood!" punk, and the two incestuous brothers and an artist chick who form a menage-a-trois symbolic of the potential for a new way of life. This is a weird movie but I liked it, especially the insane bald man who owns every business in the world, but spends most of his time producing rubbishy post-punk bands. And Adam Ant is in it! Pretty damned cool.

Fiend Without A Face - Man, what a lot of different funny accents those Canadians have. Also, there are killer brains on the loose! Pretty goofy, but fun. It even has the classic "Guy goes in to a house to see if a lady's ok and accidentally walks-in on her in the shower" gag.

Gunga Din - A weird movie. It probably should have been called Cary Grant, His Two Friends, and An Indian Guy Who Dies To Assuage Our Imperialist Guilt. Having said which, this is a pretty good movie, and obviously quite influential on things like Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid and Indiana Jones. The leader of the evil Thug cult is actually a pretty cool guy, aside from the strangling folks, and in the end the depiction of Indians in this film is actually weirdly progressive. I don't know, it seems to suffer from a strong bout of cognitive dissonance.

The Letter - Bette Davis is great! Also, she was never quite as evil as I expected her to be. I would have loved it if this film had ended with her husband forgiving her, and their going on to live their lives together, but I guess that was never going to happen given the times. I really like the ending, which seems to have been cooked-up as a way of getting around the "No Suicide" clause. Well, it probably wasn't, but it seems that way. In the end, this was a damned impressive film.

The Trial of Joan of Arc - That Bresson sure likes his humanist struggles, doesn't he. Not as effecting as The Passion of Joan of Arc, and the various political fiddlings grew a bit confusing to follow at times given that all the actors showed the minimum of emotion, but this was certainly the most appealing and believable vision of Joan of Arc the person that I've seen put to film (I have only seen three Joan of Arc movies, though, and that lame television mini-series from the late 90s).

An Autumn Afternoon - Ozu is the most depressing filmmaker. This is a really, really slow movie, but worth it.

Joined: 25 Jul 2008 Posts: 6011

Best Joan of Arc movie is Preminger's Saint Joan, followed by Dreyer and then Robert Bresson's Trial of Joan of Arc. The last ten minutes of Godard's King Lear works too. Will probably never watch the Luc Besson attempt or that miniseries. The Rivette films are missing almost two hours of footage against his wishes, so I won't watch that one either 'til it's out right. I do need to see the Victor Fleming one though. Some day

Joined: 11 Nov 2005 Posts: 8693

Jacques Rivette made a Joan of Arc movie? I did not know that but I'm damned happy that I do now.

Joined: 25 Jul 2008 Posts: 6011

Tom Meade wrote:

Jacques Rivette made a Joan of Arc movie? I did not know that but I'm damned happy that I do now.

Joan the Maid. It's in two parts but is only available on home video in a truncated version that cuts out roughly an hour from each part. They accidentally screened the full version at a Rivette retrospective a few years ago though, and it bumped the whole retro off schedule. I sadly was not in attendance and no one who was there knew they were getting the full version either until the film started

Joined: 11 Nov 2005 Posts: 8693

Maybe I will watch the truncated version anyway. I can always just watch it again unexpurgated when it becomes possible to do so.

Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 3:15 am

I watched Firewall, In Bruges, Street Kings, Lucky Number Sle7en, Gran Torino, Sex Drive, Role Models and maybe some more

found a great website :3

Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 10:26 am

I watched Bedtime Stories and Zack & Miri Make a plausible narrative.

Very different movies to watch consecutively.

Joined: 30 Oct 2007 Posts: 3361

llkh @ the filter there

Posted: Thu May 07, 2009 7:35 am

didn't even notice :o

Joined: 14 Jan 2009 Posts: 1205

Fantastic Four and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

These were pretty good. How much I like them seems to come down to how much I like the characters (eh) and the actors, rather than any serious considerations about the quality of the plot.

Having said that I was concerned initially that I wouldn't like a movie about a superhero team comprised of Vic Mackey and Christina Aguilera and these two other guys, whoever they're supposed to be. And then I watched one twice.

The comic book touches were nice, and the new origin actually makes a little more sense (at least if you don't want to confuse your audience with Doctor Doom being a sorcerer). I liked the way Galactus was handled, even if the ending of the second movie was a bit dumb. Let's face it, this was never going to be an intelligent discourse.

But I'm torn on them, because despite the the skin-tight origins (there's a surprising amount of cleavage, stripping and nudity) and the subtler stuff (the rubber stretching sound effect that indicates Mr Fantastic has a boner) that doesn't really seem to flow, overall the stories are well paced. A lot of the acting could use, I don't know, a second take? I give it three Galacti of a possible five.

Speaking of terrible, I turned off The Animatrix toward the end of The Second Renaissance, part 2, because there is only so much faux-intellectualised emo bullshit I can take right now.

The CGI segment, Final Flight of the Osiris, stands up pleasingly on technical grounds but it's dating a little in technical terms (maybe a HD copy would change my mind, but the surfaces now seem a little fuzzier and flatter than I recall, though there are whole ten-second chunks where it's possible to be fooled you're watching flesh and blood actors) and the story is "action sci-fi", and at that not a particularly compelling or original plot.

But I turned it off, so I can't give it any Galacti.

The Philadelphia Experiment

Jesus.

"Hey uh, doesn't have a phone, hur dur"

There's just so many things wrong with the characterisation that I can't really blame the actors. It's clearly a lack of direction.

No Galacti here either.

Joined: 25 Jan 2008 Posts: 942 Location: greenville, sc

so the technical grounds were good but not the technical terms huh??? i hate that in a movie

Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 9:40 am

I recall The Philadelphia Experiment 2 being somewhat more interesting than The Philadelphia Experiment but uh yeah. They are pretty horrible.

Joined: 14 Jan 2009 Posts: 1205

brent wrote:

so the technical grounds were good but not the technical terms huh??? i hate that in a movie

yeah what I meant there was "the first bit with the swordfight and the sentinel chase still looks good, but by comparison to more modern CGI there are problems with texture layering, and maybe a weighting/motion thing, although it's The Matrix so who the hell knows, then again purely in terms of the story mechanics it's fine. It's still crap, but's it's fine for what it does".

I uh

I didn't really notice that at all whoops

It just seems flat when it ought to be in glorious 2.5D.

There's a Philadelphia Experiment 2? W-why would anyone do that

Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 9:57 am

Turns out another side-effect of the Philadelphia Experiment was that in addition to sailors being sent forward in time, a stealth bomber full of nuclear bombs was also sucked back to Nazi Germany and Hitler won World War II because of it.

Pretty much the worst possible outcome for an experiment that wasn't even supposed to have anything to do with time travel imo.

Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 10:00 am

Not to mention all the guys who ended up fused to the deck of the battleship. Just all around a really terrible experiment in every way.

Joined: 14 Jan 2009 Posts: 1205

Well I watched the first one because I've been reading about it on Skepdic and despite the very reasonable explanation of the actual events, some of the myths seemed like they'd make good plots.

But no, they just wound up in 1984, where every mundane device and fashion blew their minds. Oh, and where horses watch people have sex. And Tom Petty gets his truck stolen. And cops say things like "We'll get them at the next roadblock" but then they don't, because the cop doesn't use his radio to tell the next roadblock.

I did like some of the performances from the older actors, but the three leads were awful.

I kept getting the feeling it was going to be a pilot for a Quantum Leap type show that never quite made it.

Joined: 11 Nov 2005 Posts: 8693

The Animatrix is pretty good once you get past the first few shorts. There's a really neat one by Peter Chung, and a really neat one about a detective in Japan, and all sorts of entertaining weirdness. Honestly, a lot of those shorts are better than the movies (which isn't saying much). One thing I like about the whole project, which has little to do with what's on screen, is that in the special features for the DVD they explain that each of the guest directors was allowed to choose between working from a Wachowski script, or being given a massive budget to film their own, much better, idea. The choices made were unsurprising.

I haven't seen it since it first came out on DVD, mind, so I may have been overly receptive to it at the time.