NOW CLOSED ; List some movies you've watched recently. Theatre, rental, TV... and give a */10

[chowderhead]

Never heard of either TBH. I was specifically talking about the first Fast and Furious film.

the Fast and the Furious is literally plotwise the same movie as Point Break

https://twitter.com/x/status/1029116754621079553

 

[woolfe9998]

Episode 6 of The Squid Games. Best so far. Hard hitting episode. That was really well done.

I hope the last three are as good.

Binged the entire thing last night. Was up late. +1 on Squid Game and especially episode 6. The cruelty of the premise combined with the poignancy of the outcome really got under my skin.

Everyone who isn't too squeamish should see this one.

 

[Muse]

Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1971. Well, I didn't make out how long it was, I suppose around 2 hours. Couldn't end soon enough for me, but I toughed it out to the end. It started fantastic, I mean who shows straight up porn during the opening credits, huh? The recently deceased Melvin Van Peebles was jack of all trades on this one. Starred, wrote, edited, composed the music, etc. etc.

So, it started great, there was a lot of pretty good stuff in there but it went downhill steadily and I was WTF are they really doing here? I mean, no plot, just stark exaggeration of stereotypes, catering to popular tropes, sensationalism, pulling out all stops in portraying the mistreatment of blacks, the incorrigible racism of law enforcement (this was 1970, so revolution was in the air in urban centers in the USA)... now, it did have a lot of great cinematic values... Peebles took that to the limit... there was no overdoing anything for him, he just went for it. The music was fine, OK, great really, but there wasn't the variety needed, he beat it to death. A lot of REALLY BAD acting. It's kind of a so bad it's good kind of movie in some ways. It's certainly a novelty. It was early blaxploitation! I'll give it 6/10.

 

[DigDog]

Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1971. Well, I didn't make out how long it was, I suppose around 2 hours. Couldn't end soon enough for me, but I toughed it out to the end. It started fantastic, I mean who shows straight up porn during the opening credits, huh? The recently deceased Melvin Van Peebles was jack of all trades on this one. Starred, wrote, edited, composed the music, etc. etc.

So, it started great, there was a lot of pretty good stuff in there but it went downhill steadily and I was WTF are they really doing here? I mean, no plot, just stark exaggeration of stereotypes, catering to popular tropes, sensationalism, pulling out all stops in portraying the mistreatment of blacks, the incorrigible racism of law enforcement (this was 1970, so revolution was in the air in urban centers in the USA)... now, it did have a lot of great cinematic values... Peebles took that to the limit... there was no overdoing anything for him, he just went for it. The music was fine, OK, great really, but there wasn't the variety needed, he beat it to death. A lot of REALLY BAD acting. It's kind of a so bad it's good kind of movie in some ways. It's certainly a novelty. It was early blaxploitation! I'll give it 6/10.

porn .. porn .. easy to throw that word around, but it's artistic expression, not porn. Why porn, just because there is a frontal shot of 13yo Van Peebles Jr's footlong that leads to one of several unsimulated sex scenes, so much so that Van P Sr actually got compensation from the screen director's guild for being injured on the job (got gonorrhea) which he then used to buy more film??

ok maybe it is porn.

Given that i can never be N2 to Muse, i too watched .. ermmm...
Well, "watched" is a strong word. Let's say "i saw". I looked at.

I looked at Sweet Sweetback's Badass Song - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067810/reference

and i would not recommend it.
This is very much the equivalent of a student film being repurposed for distribution (as Dark Star was). While it does have some historical merits, it's just so poorly made that you would have to be heavily invested in the culture to actually understands what's going on. Lots of dark shots, cuts that make little sense, terrible filming, and, to be honest, the dialogue and scenes are not really funny.
Compare it instead to the far better Dolemite, or any number of other blaxploitation films, and Sweetback comes across as amateurish in every way possible.

..i mean ... cuz it was. They were literally throwin' the kitchen sink, see what sticks attitude.

I'm sure it would have been groundbreaking at the time, but unless you are a dedicated historian of the genre, there are better alternatives to spend your time with, for example, the also-released-in-1971 "Shaft" (no, not the Samuel L Jackson version).

My vote: 5/10 with a measly +0.5 for historical significance

 

[DigDog]

i watched Jack Reacher - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0790724/reference

hmm for the 4th time.
Whatever you say, this is a good film. Cruise is good in his role, and the story is intriguing. An unstable ex-army sniper is set up as fallguy for an assassination. Fall guy phones a friend, hard-as-bricks MP Jack Reacher, knowing he is the man who can prove his innocence. Reacher gets involved but for the very opposite reason, he thinks fall guy is guilty. As Reacher gets to work, his smarts, diligence and toughness slowly make him realize that he's been caught in a web of deceit.

See, the story is really smart, and is laid down at the right pacing, bit by bit, that we are both intrigued and that the conclusion is not obvious. It doesn't try to spoil its own suspense, so to speak.

The film is ultimately let down by a mediocre shootout ending, instead of the better "police work" that kept it going until then. Herzog as the bad guy is terrible, his murder by Reacher is out of character, and the film just ends leaving Reacher being now a wanted suspect in two murders. I mean, good thing that Jack Reacher 2 is shit, 'amirite?

Robert Duvall is great as the gruff shotting range owner, Pike is .. meh, decent in her role as the book-smart, IRL-stupid DA's daughter, David Oyelowo is great in his tiny role with 5 minutes of active screen time, despite being a main plot character.

It sure could have been great with a script rewrite; it reminds me of the 1970s spy stories in the vein of Three Days Of Condor, where both the plot and the motive are realistic, and the coverups clever but not impossible.

Once again, a Tom Cruise film let down by a mediocre ending. My Vote: 7/10 with another +0.5 added just for the gorgeous onscreen presence of 19yo Alexia Fast

 

[Muse]

porn .. porn .. easy to throw that word around, but it's artistic expression, not porn. Why porn, just because there is a frontal shot of 13yo Van Peebles Jr's footlong that leads to one of several unsimulated sex scenes, so much so that Van P Sr actually got compensation from the screen director's guild for being injured on the job (got gonorrhea) which he then used to buy more film??

ok maybe it is porn.

Given that i can never be N2 to Muse, i too watched .. ermmm...
Well, "watched" is a strong word. Let's say "i saw". I looked at.

I looked at Sweet Sweetback's Badass Song - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067810/reference

and i would not recommend it.
This is very much the equivalent of a student film being repurposed for distribution (as Dark Star was). While it does have some historical merits, it's just so poorly made that you would have to be heavily invested in the culture to actually understands what's going on. Lots of dark shots, cuts that make little sense, terrible filming, and, to be honest, the dialogue and scenes are not really funny.
Compare it instead to the far better Dolemite, or any number of other blaxploitation films, and Sweetback comes across as amateurish in every way possible.

..i mean ... cuz it was. They were literally throwin' the kitchen sink, see what sticks attitude.

I'm sure it would have been groundbreaking at the time, but unless you are a dedicated historian of the genre, there are better alternatives to spend your time with, for example, the also-released-in-1971 "Shaft" (no, not the Samuel L Jackson version).

My vote: 5/10 with a measly +0.5 for historical significance

Yeah, I'm still digesting my watch of Sweetback.... I read Wikipedia's page on it and realized that I didn't always get the backbone, i.e. the gist of the "plot." Digdog's right in that there was a whole lot of try everything and see what sticks going on, though. Hell of experimental, and to credit Peebles, a lot of that was groundbreaking and had much influence on cinema going forward... but does that recommend it for modern viewers? I mean, yeah, it was 50 years ago. Peebles was relatively poor, the studios rejected the project, he got a IIRC $75,000 loan from Bill Cosby (Cosby didn't want any proceeds, just his 75k back) and it was shot in 19 days using largely amateur actors (largely terrible acting). The movie did make $15 million at the box office, got mixed reviews.

My experience watching it felt like torture at the end. I think I should maybe watch it again, with the plot in mind, the info at Wikipedia. I rarely check out IMDB, no reason why, maybe if I did I would rather than go to Wikipedia.

For openers, the movie starts in a brothel, AKA a whorehouse. Having never set step in one I didn't even realize that's where I was! If I see the movie again, well, I'll at least know where I am at the getgo.

 

[shortylickens]

Early Reviews are out:

He gave it 8/10, and there arent any real spoilers.

 

[purbeast0]

Many Saints of Newark - meh/10

I was enjoying it quite a bit but it just ended really poorly. The whole tie in to Sopranos felt completely tacked on. If it wasn't tied in the movie would have completely been ignored by everyone. It was also marketed as a movie it was not - Tony Soprano is like barely a side character in the movie. The movie is about Chris's dad.

It was okay and if a Sopranos fan you gotta watch it, but don't expect anything great by any stretch. Very underwhelming and forgettable.

I also do not understand why they had to make a certain actor play 2 twin characters. It was just really stupid and felt super forced and unnecessary.

 

[shortylickens]

Yeah Hollywood does that a lot. Somebody comes up with a shitty script, they cant sell it, or sell the movie, they find some way to indirectly tie it into something more famous, they rewrite a few lines and PRESTO!
Now you have ticket sales.

The last Cloverfield movie had nothing to do with Cloverfield until they rewrote it. And a crapload of horror movies too. If a movie in your favorite franchise doesnt make any damn sense, it was probably something else entirely until they rewrote it.

 

[purbeast0]

Yeah Hollywood does that a lot. Somebody comes up with a shitty script, they cant sell it, or sell the movie, they find some way to indirectly tie it into something more famous, they rewrite a few lines and PRESTO!
Now you have ticket sales.

I am almost positive that was not the case with that movie. Im pretty sure the creator of the series, David Chase, was highly involved with it.

 

[Sunburn74]

I watched the witcher movie on netflix about geralt's predecessor vesemir. It was a 6/10. Enjoyable but kind of light on plot and with thin characters.

 

[DigDog]

i watched Infinite - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6654210/reference

and from a filmmaking point of view, it was so incredibly bad, it can serve as an example of bad stuff being bad when describing what bad means.

4/10
longer review to follow

 

[NuclearNed]

The Walk (9/10) (I watched this on the IMDB streaming service) When this movie came out, it got great reviews - but completely flopped at the box office. I always wanted to see it, but forgot about it until a few days ago when I noticed it was IMDB. What a fantastic movie!!! It's the true story of the French "performance artist" who in 1974 illegally strung a high wire between the World Trade Center towers, over a thousand feet off the ground, and then walked it!! The film is basically a heist/caper movie; it is the story of how the main character and his accomplices figured out how to pull the whole thing off. The last 30-40 minutes are edge-of-your-seat suspenseful like few other movies I've seen. Directed by Robert Zemeckis & starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt

 

[mikeymikec]

I watched the witcher movie on netflix about geralt's predecessor vesemir. It was a 6/10. Enjoyable but kind of light on plot and with thin characters.

That's a shame; the witcher franchise seems ideal in animation too. Fantasy stories involving superhumans are a dime-a-dozen, and the witcher franchise already showed that it's worth more than many/most of those.

 

[Scarpozzi]

the Fast and the Furious is literally plotwise the same movie as Point Break

https://twitter.com/x/status/1029116754621079553

Made me think of this:

 

[Scarpozzi]

I finally watched Blade Runner (1982). It had some decent sequences in it and the casting was pretty good, but story and execution of the story were lacking. Hard to explain but much of it was the choice to make the scenes so dark. Even when the characters were indoors, there was typically a greater light-source outside. Maybe that's just what the future would have been like without LED lighting.

I could definitely see a lot of similarities between Blade Runner and movies that came out later. It's neat when you see ideas recycled and re-executed 15+ years later in sci-fi without much change. I'm going to give it a solid 6/10. With better staged lighting, special effects (fight scenes), and story details, it could have easily been a 7 or more.

 

[sdifox]

I finally watched Blade Runner (1982). It had some decent sequences in it and the casting was pretty good, but story and execution of the story were lacking. Hard to explain but much of it was the choice to make the scenes so dark. Even when the characters were indoors, there was typically a greater light-source outside. Maybe that's just what the future would have been like without LED lighting.

I could definitely see a lot of similarities between Blade Runner and movies that came out later. It's neat when you see ideas recycled and re-executed 15+ years later in sci-fi without much change. I'm going to give it a solid 6/10. With better staged lighting, special effects (fight scenes), and story details, it could have easily been a 7 or more.

which cut did you watch?

 

[Scarpozzi]

which cut did you watch?

Whichever one was on Netflix.

 

[balloonshark]

Watched Voyagers Sat. night on HBO Max. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9664108/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Yet another movie with teens. The parts that didn't make sense is how we bet the future of humanity on teens made from the genes of the smartest people. Then they give the teens a mood stabilizer supliment to keep them from being teens but since they are ultra smart they figure it out and quit taking the meds. Cue hormones exploding and chaos.

The other thing that didn't make sense is how the kids were raised indoors in isolation but they had this super irrational fear of aliens. It's not like they were exposed to the movie alien during their upbringing. It just didn't make any sense.

 

[shortylickens]

Whichever one was on Netflix.

Last time I had a netflix account I'm pretty sure they had two versions.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Last time I had a netflix account I'm pretty sure they had two versions.

Which version did they mail short people? I watched the other one.

 

[DownTheSky]

Old Henry. It was pretty good, decent western. Kept me awake and not bored for the entire duration. 7/10

 

[DigDog]

I finally watched Blade Runner (1982). It WAS AMAZING
I'm going to give it a solid 9/10 AND I DONT KNOW MUCH ABOUT FILM

what can i say, i wholeheartedly agree with your review. Specially the bit where a Film Noir was too Noir. I liked that bit.

 

[ultimatebob]

Right now, I'm watching Billion Dollar Code on Netflix. It reminds me of a German version of Halt and Catch Fire. I'll give it an 8 out of 10.

By the way, if you haven't seen Halt and Catch Fire, I'd highly recommend it. The first couple of episodes are rough, but it gets better quickly and by the second season it's awesome.

 

[DigDog]

I watched Old Henry - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12731980/reference

and i didn't really like it.
Tim Blake Nelson 1-man show, he is the titular Henry, a farmer in the 1880s, who barely makes a living despite the hard work, and to show for it has an angry kid who resents him.
One day a wounded man is found, and three sherrifs follow to look for him. There is also a bag of money.
spoilers below

Spoiler

they are not sherrifs, but rather robbers, and they want the money back and are happy to kill whomever happens to be in the way. Unfortunately ol'henry happens to be a retired Billy The Kid, and he massacres them.
The film is 70% buildup to the showdown, and i say "buildup" very loosely because it's extremely boring. Well made, well acted, but boring. It's super-obvious (because the film wants it to be so) that the sheriffs are robbers and that "henry" is a badass .. because the characters literally say so themselves.
TBN does a lot of reciting lines, but he doesn't have a great presence in this role, although you may have a different opinion - i can't but think of him in Oh Brother. Nothing like, say, a oldskool Clint Eastwood.
The kid is fucking annoying, and his lines are right out of the millennial's handbook of how to be annoying.
They bring a bunch of nobodies around for the final shootout and then, that's about it.

the reviews are pretty high on IMDb, so maybe give it a look, you might enjoy it more than i do.
i would give it 6/10