What Is The Last Film You Watched? (Older Films)

[John 2,032]

People like to crap on the "Bayformers" films, but the 2007 original is a legitimately solid popcorn movie with some great action. I have fond memories of watching it as a kid.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

All the action scenes are top notch. Jablonsky and team’s score is superb as well. It somehow reproduced the Bruckheimer model from the 90s. 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

12 minutes ago, John said:

People like to crap on the "Bayformers" films, but the 2007 original is a legitimately solid popcorn movie with some great action. I have fond memories of watching it as a kid.

 

How old are you?

[John 2,032]

On ‎9‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 4:13 PM, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

How old are you?

 

What does it matter?

[Ollie 1,059]

I still don’t know what the hell happened in the second hour of the film.

 

It went from having a touch of Spielberg’s influence during the first hour to an all out cgi crapfest.

 

 

 

On 9/20/2019 at 9:29 AM, Thekthithm said:

Aquaman

 

I should've flicked it off after five minutes. What a bloated mess of pixels! All that kept me going was flicking off to Amber Heard.

 

 

Yeah it felt and looked like Justice League, rushed and the CGI was too cartoonish.

[Chen G. 3,949]

1 hour ago, John said:

People like to crap on the "Bayformers" films, but the 2007 original is a legitimately solid popcorn movie with some great action.

 

Yeah.

 

As with any Michael Bay film, the freneticism of the camerawork - especially in a two-and-a-half-hour film - is borderline headache-inducing. But it impressively mounted, and all that anyone will ever need of Bay and his Transformers films.

 

17 minutes ago, John said:

42. 

 

Must...resist...quoting...Gimli!!

 

"42! That's not bad fo..." - No! control yourself, Chen!

 

I may need a minute...

[A24 4,338]

 

3/10

 

 

5/10

 

 

Movies aren't what they used to be.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Just watch TV instead.

[publicist 4,643]

 

Still makes me queasy - Scorsese making himself the mouthpiece of a depraved Wall Street banker is a bit too much on the nihilistic side and there's almost nothing to counterbalance the depravity. The movie has Belfort say (it's probably straight out of his book) that money is a means of invincibility, to conquer the world and destroy your enemies. But what transpires on screen is different: money allows breaking all the rules, it enables an almost anarchic (often comic) freedom of letting go. That's the *fun* part. So we get loving glimpses of orgies, luxury excesses, drug abuse, all the stuff you expect and more and it's comically dazzling, even if we might squirm once in a while.

 

And here the problems start. Scorsese openly disdains his audience when he repeatedly has DiCaprio's off-voice starting to explain stock market contexts only to cut the explanation short: 'But does that really interest you?'. No, it doesn't, Scorsese says, and explicitly cuts away to another sordid office party, congratulating us on our addiction to cheap thrills and shallow entertainment. That's the tunnel vision of this movie, which is Belfort's narcissism and megalomania undiluted, without ever reflecting him (you need a magnifying glass for that) or acknowledging the damage guys like him caused, even to society at large. Of course this was omitted on purpose (Scorsese sure din't want to do a didactic piece), but to what end? 

 

As filmic rollercoaster, it oozes brilliance but it's also annoying like those old fake-pious bible movies with long loving shots of christians feeded to the lions. To sly and amusing to be a horror movie (the next logic step), the thing to take away after three hours is that money is (and makes) vulgar but gee, crash-landing a helicopter at your front door is so much fun. 

[bollemanneke 3,349]

Crimes of Grindelwald, final thoughts.

 

Oh, my goodness. Where do I start? Okay, how about this: Why doesn’t Grindelwald commit more crimes in the crimes of Grindelwald? Johnny Depp's accent is either a nightmare or an intrigueing addition. Why on earth should I care about Credence, Leta (Zoë Kravitz is hardly great) and Yusuf)? I still don’t like Jude Law and why does Dumbledore insist that Newt should duel Grindelwald? Why doesn’t Tina follow Yusuf in Paris and why is Fiona Glascott so annoying? How did Grindelwald suddenly find Credence? Who is the woman Flamel, who is entirely superfluous, talks to in the book? How did Jacob get to that rally when Yusuf had captured him? Why does Grindelwald carry that blood pact around and why has Dumbledore suddenly got an extra brother? I also don’t care about the beasts. Give me a movie with political drama that doesn’t contain rubbish about Maledictuses, Obscurials, Can’tspells and old predictions and make another movie about the beasts. Everything is so long-winded and convoluted as well. Will the third movie be about David Yates preventing Rowling from writing any more scripts so that James Newton Howard can hunt him down to avenge all the Patrick Doyle fans because Yates used Hooper for the Order of the Phoenix music instead and now really went too far, not knowing that Doyle is already hiding from David Heyman’s wife and is therefore unavailable for any project anyway, because Heyman's wife was unhappy with Doyle’s big pay-check for Goblet of Fire and started an affair with Howard after a cup of tea in an Italian restaurant hoping to turn him against Doyle, unaware of the fact that Howard likes Doyle's music?

All joking aside, the score was mostly outstanding. Howard clearly enjoys this franchise and I honestly can't understand how he managed to write the score he wrote for this movie. The emphasis on female choir was wonderful and provided this story with the magic it was lacking. The metallic material for Grindelwald is brilliant, the Hedwig’s theme reprise is amazing, Dumbledore’s theme could be better and the accordions for Paris are fantastic. The upbeat end credits suite conveyed only one message to me: It's over now.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

9 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

Will the third movie be about David Yates preventing Rowling from writing any more scripts so that James Newton Howard can hunt him down to avenge all the Patrick Doyle fans because Yates used Hooper for the Order of the Phoenix music instead and now really went too far, not knowing that Doyle is already hiding from David Heyman’s wife and is therefore unavailable for any project anyway, because Heyman's wife was unhappy with Doyle’s big pay-check for Goblet of Fire and started an affair with Howard after a cup of tea in an Italian restaurant hoping to turn him against Doyle, unaware of the fact that Howard likes Doyle's music?

 

Wut?

[bollemanneke 3,349]

I was referring to the absurdly complicated plotlines of this movie.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

That’s a helluva run-on sentence. 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

He just kept talking in one long incredibly unbroken sentence, moving from topic to topic so that no one had the chance to interrupt. It was really quite hypnotic.

[Matt C 454]

4 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

I was referring to the absurdly complicated plotlines of this movie.

 

You nailed it. There’s only enough material left for a cohesive third movie.

[Edmilson 7,466]

18 hours ago, publicist said:

To sly and amusing to be a horror movie (the next logic step), the thing to take away after three hours is that money is (and makes) vulgar but gee, crash-landing a helicopter at your front door is so much fun. 

 

You know, I have a personal story with Wolf of Wall Street.

 

My younger brother, since he became a teen, wanted to be a film director. So, to begin his studies, when he was 13/14, he started watching every movie classic he could torrent or buy the DVD, everything from Kurosawa to the old Hollywood westerns, from Leone to the New Hollywood of the 60s and 70s, from Kubrick to John Ford. He used as his guide an old edition of that series 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (that one with Indie on the cover), and so watched a lot of the old classics, besides also watching every movie he could of the awards season (not only Oscar movies, but Cannes movies also, lol). Today, he actually studies Cinema at the college, and will graduate later this year.

 

When Wolf of Wall Street premiered here, in January 2014, he was almost 16 and he had already watched all of Scorsese's most well regarded films (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, etc). That and the fact that Wolf was one of the main movies of that awards season made him very anxious to watch it. However, there was a major problem: minors weren't allowed to enter sessions for that film. 
 

Here in Brazil the rating system for movies (and TV shows, games, etc) are like this: there's the Livre (as in Free for all Publics) rating, then inadequate for people younger than 10, inadequate for people under 12, 14, 16 and 18. A child younger than 12 can watch a 12+ movie if accompanied by his parents or guardians, and the same goes for all categories - except the 18+ one. That one is the equivalent of USA's NC-17 and the movie have to be really fucking brutal on violence, sex and drugs to earn it, so much so that kids younger than 18 cannot enter the cinema even if accompanied by his parents. Most R Rated films are actually 16+ here: the It series, Logan, Deadpool 1 and 2, the John Wick franchise, 50 Shades of Grey, bawdy comedies, horror blockbusters... Which means a teen can watch all these stuff on movie theaters if accompanied by an older person. Even Game of Thrones is rated 16+ here. Anyway, very few movies are rated 18+ here, and most of them are of the grindhouse type. But Wolf of Wall Street, for obvious reasons, was one of these movies.
 

But my brother was so conviced to watch this movie on theaters that we went to our local Cinemark to try our luck. I was already of age by that time, but as I said, even if I was with him he couldn't enter. So, we tried a different strategy.

 

I don't know if this exists in your countries, but here in mine students and people older than 65 have the right to pay for half the price of a movie ticket (or tickets for concerts, plays, etc). Me and my brother could pay half the price, but we chose to pay the full price of our tickets (something only non-students adults do). This combined with the fact that my brother appeared to be older than 16 made us be accepted into the session no questions asked. So, we watched the whole thing, and no one realized they let a minor enter the session for such a, say, explicit movie.

[publicist 4,643]

And he's a stockbroker now?

[Matt C 454]

On 9/22/2019 at 3:53 AM, publicist said:

 

Still makes me queasy - Scorsese making himself the mouthpiece of a depraved Wall Street banker is a bit too much on the nihilistic side and there's almost nothing to counterbalance the depravity. The movie has Belfort say (it's probably straight out of his book) that money is a means of invincibility, to conquer the world and destroy your enemies. But what transpires on screen is different: money allows breaking all the rules, it enables an almost anarchic (often comic) freedom of letting go. That's the *fun* part. So we get loving glimpses of orgies, luxury excesses, drug abuse, all the stuff you expect and more and it's comically dazzling, even if we might squirm once in a while.

 

 

This movie made me want to take a shower afterwards. No desire to see this again.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Why not? This is America!

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Death Wish 1

 

Anyone else notice how flashy and flamboyant the street toughs are in these movies?  They're not like that in real life! The highlight is seeing a gawky young Jeff Golbum hollering out "Ya rich cunt! Ya rich cunt!"

 

 

Death Wish 2

 

Charles Bronson must have the unluckiest daughter in ever! A bit trashier than the original but still entertaining.

 

 

Death Wish 3

 

Deanna Troi's tits!

[publicist 4,643]

III is horrendous. Oddly, V is much better.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I loved III. That big street battle at the end against Brad from Superman III was awesome!

[Sweeping Strings 2,363]

Hazy memory of once seeing a clip from Death Wish 3 in which a doctor is asked how a patient brought into his hospital with a broken leg died, his answer is 'There were complications'. 

 

I mean ... it SOUNDS like it was meant to be funny, but who knows with Michael Winner?   

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Same thing happened in Death Wish 1! The victims in these movies didn't cop a beating as insanely and absurdly hard as Tuco gave a henchman in Breaking Bad, so how they keep dying with just a broken bone is anyone's guess!

[The Illustrious Jerry 3,356]

BlackkKlansman (2018)

I was initially taken aback by the title of this movie when first I heard it, but it's a lot lighter on it's feet and yet still as socially relevant than I had expected. For everything that BlackkKlansman ends up being (and rather harmoniously too), it I certainly isn't disappointing. It strikes a perfect balance between, as members have already identified recently, crime, thriller, comedy, and "blaxploitation". Genuinely good and holds up over it's run-time with ease. Again, wasn't thrilled about the current day connection-making epilogue, because I really didn't need that to spell out for me that racism is still an issue. Fine film.

 

**** out of *****

 

Dial M For Murder (1954)

Lots of talking/explaining and plotting. Can get a tad overwhelming but still a clever murder case, where the so-called perfect murder plan folds in on itself and the mastermind attempts to cover his now numerous tracks.

 

*** and a half * out of *****

[publicist 4,643]

When murderers still could suavely bid farewell to their botched victims. 

 

[Marian Schedenig 8,198]

2 hours ago, The Illustrious Jerry said:

Dial M For Murder (1954)

Lots of talking/explaining and plotting. Can get a tad overwhelming but still a clever murder case, where the so-called perfect murder plan folds in on itself and the mastermind attempts to cover his now numerous tracks.

 

And don't forget it has John Williams.

 

Quite fun in 3D, too.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I’m looking forward to the re-recording of Tiomkin’s score  

[Sweeping Strings 2,363]

Our Kind Of Traitor - Le Carre adaptation in which a university lecturer and his barrister wife are befriended by a Russian whilst on holiday in Morocco. He turns out to be a money-launderer for the Russian Mafia, and hands over a memory stick (containing details of corrupt British politicians and businessmen colluding in a plot with the mob to open a new bank in London to launder billions) to the couple with instructions for them to hand it over to MI6 on their return, in the hope that this will allow him and his family to defect. They do so, and assume that will be the end of their involvement ... but of course it's not as simple as that. 

A nicely taut thriller, starring Ewan McGregor, Damian Lewis and Naomie Harris. And Stellan Skarsgard puts in a great turn as the hearty, garrulous Russian.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,534]

WWTLFIW?

 

Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap. Clap-clap-clap-clap "Bridger!"

 

Brilliant!

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Little Fockers

 

Worth it just to see Jessica Alba get all giggly and horny.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Throne of Blood

 

My personal favorite Kurosawa.  Man it’s just so good.  This fog-filled dream-like samurai film about the folly of ambition.  The eerie forest scenes are the highlights for me.  In fact the creepy atmosphere overhanging the whole movie is entrancing.

[Edmilson 7,466]

Midsommar

 

"Sweden: visit us and meet our wonderful local traditions!". Uhm, no, thanks.

 

Just like Hereditary, this movie unfolds like a particularly realistic nightmare, things don't make much sense but there's a palpable sense of doom and dread. But, unlike Hereditary, this one actually creeped me out. Some people may roll their eyes at the idea of a 2,5 hour horror movie, but this one actually benefited from the extended duration. It uses its time to develop the characters, the relationships between them and also slowly revealing the danger and the doom that awaits for them. I actually like this slow burn type of horror movie, and here it is used very well - which is not to say that there's maybe some 10 minutes of overly long scenes that could have been cut.
 

It has some disturbing imagery that are simultaneously creepy, disgusting and hilariously absurd, a mix of emotions not unlike a fever dream. It's too bad that one of the scenes that were supposed to be one of the most disturbing actually reminded me of another folk horror movie that has become an internet meme, completely ruining the mood.

 

Anyway, it's well directed, has some great performances and it will be probably the creepiest american movie of the year. But you'll want to stay away from Nordic closed communities for a long time.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

3 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

Throne of Blood

 

My personal favorite Kurosawa.  Man it’s just so good.  This fog-filled dream-like samurai film about the folly of ambition.  The eerie forest scenes are the highlights for me.  In fact the creepy atmosphere overhanging the whole movie is entrancing.

 

On a mountain of skulls?

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I await the word of Vigo!

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

In the Castle of Pain...

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Now is a season of evil!

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Eevihill??

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Who's this wiggler?

[Sweeping Strings 2,363]

Lethal Weapon 2 - the Tivo 'Suggested Recordings' section came up trumps again last night. The last time I tried to play the DVD a couple of months ago it was faulty and I never got past the first 10 minutes as a result, so I was pleased. 

Gibson's roguish charm, Glover's exasperated family man, Pesci driving everybody crazy, Ackland and O'Connor's hissable racist bad guys, Kensit's bee-sting boobies, mayhem and wisecracks that still stand up 30 years on ... fun, fun, fun. 
 

 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Yeah 1 and 2 are amazing action movies.

 

3 is entertaining but disposable, and 4 is near unwatchable.

[John 2,032]

The Shining 

 

Wow, finally seeing this on the big screen was a trip. Gorgeous new restoration. 

[Brundlefly 2,385]

4 hours ago, Thekthithm said:

Yeah 1 and 2 are amazing action movies.

 

3 is entertaining but disposable, and 4 is near unwatchable.

What are you talking about? The only unwatchable one is the first movie which is more like a medoicre TV series episode. 2-4 are all very entertaining and well executed.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

13 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

What are you talking about? The only unwatchable one is the first movie which is more like a medoicre TV series episode. 2-4 are all very entertaining and well executed.

 

Oi what's your beef with 1?

[Brundlefly 2,385]

The cheap production, dramaturgy and directing. The second film is a real surprise after that. The only example I know, where the first movie of a franchise is the absolute worst.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Dramaturgy?  I'm too old for this shit!

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

What does he do, sleep with big words under his pillow?

[Sweeping Strings 2,363]

4th Lethal Weapon is OK. The first one's still pretty damn good. Been a while since I've seen the 3rd, possibly even the original cinema run. 

 

Saw one episode of the TV reboot. Watered-down crap.   

[SteveMc 2,674]

#1 is fantastic.  

#2 is brilliant.

#3 is just a movie, but watchable

#4 is just a silly movie, but watchable 

[The Illustrious Jerry 3,356]

Logan Lucky (2017)

A quirky but ultimately fun heist movie, boasting the likes of a not particularly interesting Channing Tatum, a curious Daniel Craig, and a loveable one-armed Adam Driver. Felt a bit 'meh' to me most of the time. I'm non-partial really.

 

Won't You Be My Neighbour (2018)

Commenting on this now I have to think what my praise is directed towards- genuinely for this documentary, or for my love for the universal treasure that was and, through his legacy, still is Mr. Fred Rogers? It's a well done documentary, but subject matter goes such a long way here in hitting home. Compilations of footage from his shows, interviews with both himself and other relevant figures, and commentary on his life and continued presence in the hearts of so many. Hearing the words come out of his mouth, a voice I hadn't personally heard since my tender years, was so profound. His messages were made simple, his intention was infinitely honorable, and the outcome was a morally understanding generation of viewers forever endowed with the essential principles which he taught. 

 

"I like you just the way you are."

***** out of *****