NEW: List some movies you've watched recently. Theatre, rental, TV... and give a */10

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DaaQ

Golden Member
Dec 8, 2018
1,435
1,034
136
i watched a film called

The Game - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119174/reference/

and frankly i'm not sure what to make of it. This review will need spoilers, if you haven't watched this since 1997.

Michael Douglas is Nick, rich asshole that does typical rich asshole stuff, but not really that much of an asshole; you get my drift.
Sean Penn is Conrad, his loser brother. We're not sure how much of a loser he is, he appears to still be pretty rich, but Nick considers him a failure.

Conrad persuades Nick to sign up with a shadowy organization that runs "The Game", a form of entertainment for rich people, and several other people tell him this is rally amazing, life changing. The film keeps it mysterious as to what exactly this game is, but the viewer is made to understand that it's gonna make rich assholes appreciate life by putting them into really dangerous situations - possibly fake, but who know.

By this point, the film plays as a straight thriller. And, it takes its sweet time.

Nick gets fucked around with by the The Game guys more and more, and things start to get out of hand. The first problem is how much tolerance for bullshit this multimillionaire has, instead of resorting to a private army of mercenaries at the first hint of actual danger.

Eventually the film - very slowly - escalates to houses being riddles with live bullets, Nick being nearly drowned, thrown off balconies, wounded, abducted and sequestered to another country, until the "love interest" tells him that it's just a rouse to keep him busy, while the The Game guys raid his accounts. By this point, the film is a crime/heist film.

And then, because fuck you, Nick kills Conrad - with clearly visible blood-gushing chest wound - and then himself by jumping off of a building.


AAaaand obviously it was all fake. Ah ha ha. Such lulz.

Because fake bullets make fake holes in fake wood, fake water only fake-drowns you unless you happen to find a switch that opens a door (and you can swim), and physical trauma doesn't exist. And of course literally the entire world is a part of the scheme, every room in existence is bugged, and it only takes five minutes to break&enter into a house and install complex electronics and visual effects that need to predict every random possible behaviour of the victim.

As a mystery, it's well done, but it greatly overstays its welcome. As a heist film, it's a bit better, but has no ending. As a whole, the ending is ridiculous to the point of being insulting.
I guess it may be a decent one-time theater experience, but i'd leave it at that. The Usual Suspects did this far better.

6/10
Wasn't better as a theater experience. I almost left but had a large bucket of popcorn to eat.
 
Jul 27, 2020
19,596
13,437
146
Watched Deadpool Wolverine whatever. There's gratuitous violence and blood, some sick jokes, visual effects and some cool music and a few forgotten faces of yore. What it doesn't have is a REAL story that makes sense. I thought DP2 was lame but this certainly takes the cake. The first Deadpool is still the best.
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,725
2,253
126
I tried, but failed, to watch

Das Boot (remastered) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082096/reference/

Starring Jurgen Prochnov (Duke Leto from the good Dune film) as the captain of a WW2 submarine, this 8/10 on IMDb was certainly courageous when filmed in 1981 (when the Berlin Wall was still up), but it takes 3 goddamn hours to get to a vvery mild anti-war sentiment because oof, war sure is tiring. You gotta do stuff, it can be dangerous, and i'm just not having fun y'know.
Because yeah, that's Das Boot's scathing anti-war message. That war made this submarine captain sad.

i'm sorry but i wouldn't rate this more than 6/10. If you want to watch an anti-war film that has a message (and will probably rip your heart out) then go watch Land Of Mine.
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,725
2,253
126
i watched

Saturday Night Fever - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076666/reference/

Where to begin.

Ok well the script was inspired by a famous article that described the lives of newyorkers who were growing up only interested in doing their 9 to 5 and then throwing it all away at the weekend; while this was complete bullshit, people read it and thought "hey, *I* want to throw away my weekends dancing" and between this mania and the film that followed it, SNF was a huge thing during the early 70s.

The story is of Tony Manero, young italian from old-skool immigrant family who, well, does exactly that - works 9 to 5, and then can only think of dancing; not only that, because all his friends are caught up in this living life meaninglessly thing, but Tony he's *really* into it. He even pushes away his would-be GF Annette because she thinks more about Tony's cock than about dancing. In fact, he "cheats" on her with much-older Stephanie, a city woman who has got her shit together, but is also able to take dancing practice seriously.

There's this weird triangle at the center of the film. Tony is loved by everyone and all the girls want to have sex with him, Annette the most. But Tony "desires" Stephanie; not as a sexual partner, but rather as a dance partner.
Being that Stephanie is older (and kinda repressed) she thinks Tony just wants to have sex with her, because she can't understand someone from a culture so ignorant, they actually want to invest their lives in the weekly dance-a-thon at the disco down the road.

To hammer in this plot even more, the film also shows what a bunch of losers all of Tony's clique are. From the father that worked himself into a grave, the brother who `has been living life the way the family wanted him to, the guy who can't get a girl, the guy who can't get a job, the girl that just wants to get married.
In the end, one of the side characters kills himself, so that Tony can have his breakaway moment and try to maybe actually do something with his life.

From a production perspective, the film is .. ok. The issue is that the film pretty much runs out of good ideas halfway; Tony ditches Annette for Stephanie, they have the dance, Tony gets the prize but in his mind, he lost to another couple because to Tony, dance is everything.
This is only about half of the runtime; the rest is not only not as interesting, but it's also shot and paced shoddily. And unfortunately, you're gonna have to watch the whole thing. Also, John Travolta's dancing, the music of the Disco, and the actual disco sets are the best parts of the film, all of which are in the first half.

All in all, i would give SNF only 7.5/10, of which half point is for cultural importance; while it may have been massive at the time, not much of it has remained in today's world. If you've never seen it, you could probably skip it and not be any worse off for it.
 

IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
70,095
28,685
136
^ You have more patience than I did. SNF is a mess of a movie, American Graffiti with a disco ball.
 
Jul 27, 2020
19,596
13,437
146

A very mixed review: It will capture your attention. Hook you. Then give you a headache with its plot mistakes. And it's a "nepotism" project, as termed by an imdb reviewer.

gets to save the day, by illogically putting herself in danger. Looks wayyyyy too contrived.

Watch it for Hartnett and the building up of tension in the scenes.

6/10
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,725
2,253
126
i re-watched the extremely forgettable

Fantastic Four (2005) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120667/reference/

mostly because one of my housemates was saying that there's Doctor Doom's origin story in it, and i didn't think there was. We were talking about RDJ as the new Doom, ofc.
Well yeah, turns out that yes, they somehow got Doctor Doom to be the fifth Fantastic Four, using the same cosmic-ray energy that gave the FFs their original powers. How retarded is that ?
Also because Jessica Alba can be seen scantly dressed, but man, you don't want to see JA outside of glamour shots, she has absolutely zero personality, zero sex appeal, a complete waste of that hot body she got gifted with.
Chris Evans is not-Captain-America here and yet he was the only enticing character as the Human Torch.
Another weird canon-breaking thing is that the Invisible Woman isn't married to Reed Richards but rather Doom's GF ..
The Thing looks horrible; the costume is incredibly fake for a $80M budget film, and the actor / character / dialogue are just lame.
Doctor Doom isn't a wizard anymore, and doesn't wear a suit of armor, but is actually *made* of metal, following exposure to the cosmic-ray-thing.

And the story is kinda shit, to be honest. The FFs go in space and come back mutated. Soon-to-be Doctor Doom guy also is starting to show powers, and goes insane because of this; tries to kill the FFs for no reason (including his hot GF) and then they use the Terminator 2 trick on him and the film is over.

.. nothing particularly offensive in the film, but overall extremely mediocre and forgettable.

My vote: 5.5/10
 
Reactions: mikeymikec

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,725
2,253
126
I would prefer that over the Deadpool Wolverine steamy pile of crap.
really?
i mean, i havent see D&W yet, but i figured it's just a filled-with-memes shitlord comedy, no? For example, i liked everything about Deadpool 2 that wasn't the actual plot. Like, the X-Force was fantastic.
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,725
2,253
126
i watched

Dark Waters - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/reference/

Mark Ruffalo starring.

This was decent, but it's the same thing as the difference between this film and Erin Brockovich, as there is between The Big Short and Margin Call - one is creative and entertaining, the other is neither.
The story is of a lawyer being given the scoop that the multinational Dupont is knowingly disposing a dangerous byproduct of the fabrication of Tefol in unsafe manners, resulting in the poisoning of around 70,000 people. There's no clever (if fabricated) investigations where Erin shows her tits to get some paperwork, but rather just paper signing and stuffy, boring legal procedure.
The film is well acted and well directed; i won't lie, i watched it because it's got Anne Hathaway, but she's barely in it. Tim Robbins also plays the boss lawyer.
If you are looking for a docu-drama, that's based on recent, relevant facts, then you'll like this, sure, why not. But it's just that, it's a dramatized documentary, it's not entertainment.

6/10
 
Jul 27, 2020
19,596
13,437
146

If you've seen Pearl and X, you kinda know what to expect. But this one is a bit duller than both. I really hope she stops doing the retarded "I wanna be famous" routine. It's getting old and annoying. Watch it if you miss the old 80s B-movies.

5/10
 

Indus

Lifer
May 11, 2002
11,515
7,938
136
Dune Part 1 and Dune Part 2.

Dune Part 1 is a 7 but Part 2 is a 10. Only the 3rd 10 I've given a movie after Interstellar and The Dark Knight.
 
Reactions: DaaQ

Charmonium

Diamond Member
May 15, 2015
9,950
3,157
136
Tulsa King w/ Sly Stallone

No rating, Even if you don't like Stallone but you're a fan of the "five families" tough guy stereotype, I think this is quite good. Missed the first episode but I do plan on watching it eventually.

SS's character just spent 25 years of hard time for something, something. Now he's out but not going back to NYC. So he sorta hooks up the *ahem* "Tulsa mob," but his real objective is to start his own kind of business, so to say.

Acting is great. Characters are real - as these things go. Developing into a fairly complicated plot.
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,725
2,253
126

If you've seen Pearl and X, you kinda know what to expect. But this one is a bit duller than both. I really hope she stops doing the retarded "I wanna be famous" routine. It's getting old and annoying. Watch it if you miss the old 80s B-movies.

5/10
looks like me & igor go shopping at the same place for films.

I also watched Maxxxine, and i liked it. I don't think it's a film that will age well, but if you watch it today, 6.5/10

It's all about Mia Goth being good, it's about good direction, it's about horror tropes, it's a bit of a mishmash of film ideas, all well done, but more about referencing other films than telling its own story; but, yeah it's very watchable, won't take as much effort as, say, Rubber, but could use a bit of trimming to make it snappier. It's somewhat self-indulgent, which is to be expected if the core of the story is "hey let me show you how many horror films i have watched".
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,725
2,253
126
Undercover Brother - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0279493/reference/

a vaguely-funny version of Black Dynamite, but without the meta humour, instead it's just a bunch of jokes. Not even as good as Menace To South Central (Juice In The Hood), but it does have a lot of Denise Richards, but it's also super-PG13 so no titties. Why would you ever cast Denise Richards and then have no titties!

5/10 idk maybe 5.5/10 but not great.
 

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
64,016
12,338
136
Not a movie, but I just finished the Ken Burns series Muhammad Ali on PBS. 4 two hour episodes...going from when he was a kid, through his boxing years, and his death.

Having grown up watching him fight...first as Cassius Clay, I vaguely remember watching him win the gold medal in the 1960 Olympics with my dad who was a boxing fan...then as Muhammad Ali, I knew about much of what happened, had forgotten about a whole lot of it..."Oh, holy crap, I remember this! Such and such is going to happen soon!" Plus, there was a helluva lot I had no idea about. They guy truly was "The Greatest" at least as far as boxing was concerned...I never hated him for it, but at the time, I was pissed when he refused to be inducted for the draft...later, I understood why he took the stand he did...and respected him more for it.

 

stargazr

Diamond Member
Jun 13, 2010
3,936
3,329
136
The Old Man 8/10

TV series on FX starring Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow. Bridges plays a retired CIA agent whose past comes back to haunt him. He is forced to uproot his peaceful life and once again create a new identity. Lithgow is the agent assigned to track him due to prior experience. I am two episodes in and hooked, very cool so far.

One thing I like about it is although Bridges is still quite capable, he is older and struggles with the hand to hand combat stuff. It's not like so many other spy films with the outrageous superhuman fight scenes.
 
Reactions: igor_kavinski

Charmonium

Diamond Member
May 15, 2015
9,950
3,157
136
Once upon a time in Mexico 2003

There are points where you can almost think it might be a serious movie, but then you're quickly reminded. Is it a comedy trying to be serious or vice versa? It's not a tough decision.

Plus it has J Depp as one of the main characters. Also Antonio Banderas. I haven't seen everything Depp has ever done but I really can't recall a single serious role that was unabashedly serious.
 
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