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What Is The Last Film You Watched? (2021 films)


Jay

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2 hours ago, Jay said:

I loved how unpredictable and interesting the plot was.  Like I thought it was some movie set in a circus, and I loved that that was only the first 30 minutes or so then we were off on a new adventure.  And I liked that it was set in Buffalo NY, I nice departure from the usual cities just about every movie cycles through.  And Cate Blanchett just killed it as always, becoming such an interesting character after we had already met so many interesting characters at the circus.  

 

It was a film that kept on giving, all the way to the end!

Indeed. The first time I watched it, I wasn't sure why the 'circus' part was in there when we eventually came to Buffalo.

Then Blanchett stole the whole movie. She was a powerhouse.

Then the final scene suddenly made the whole film, and especially the beginning, make so much more sense. It was incredible. I was left speechless walking out of the theatre.

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Guillermo del Toro wrote that tweet thread in praise of the gym sequence oner from West Side Story, and here's an article on a just as impressive oner from Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch. 

 

This movie is a feast!

 

https://www.vulture.com/2021/11/behind-the-scenes-of-the-french-dispatchs-long-shot.html

 

The shot itself:

French Dispatch long shot from Vulture on Vimeo.

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13 hours ago, Jay said:

Guillermo del Toro, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, And David  Strathairn Unravel The Mysteries of NIGHTMARE ALLEY - Fangoria

 

Nightmare Alley

 

Boy, I really liked this film!  I loved the mood atmosphere, the long and winding plot, the acting (A huge cast of greats who all brought their A game), and the ending.


I don't recall this film getting much attention or discussion at all, but I thought it was great and would happily watch it again

 

It's on HBO Max & Hulu

 

I tried to watch it but noticed that it all left me cold so I switched it off after 20 min. or something. These days I find it important that a movie or TV series graps you from the get-go.  

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Can someone explain to Sam Elliott what The Power of the Dog is about – and  what movies are? | Movies | The Guardian

 

The Power of the Dog

 

I really liked this movie a lot.  It sure is quite the slow-burn, for a long while I wasn't jiving with the movie much, and was wondering where all this was going.  But then, the ending came.  It was so unpredictable, and in retrospect, so satisfying, that it really made me appreciate the movie as a whole.  This is one of those movies that I didn't sit there wowwed when the end credits starting, but stewing on it as time went on led to me really appreciating it.

 

It's many, many Oscar nominations are fully deserved in my book, and it's kind of shocking it only won Best Director.  Cumberbatch, Plemons, Dunst, and especially Smit-McPhee were all really good!

 

It's on Netflix.

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Jolt': Film Review – The Hollywood Reporter

 

Jolt

 

I've enjoyed most of the recent string of female-ass-kicker movies I've seen lately - Everly, Atomic Blonde, Peppermint, Anna, Ava - ok, looking back on the list, they've actually gotten worse and worse as time has gone on, and this is probably the worst one yet.


Kate Beckinsale (where has she been?) has some condition where if you get her angry at all, she can explode with intense violent rage; Early in the film a new boyfriend (Jai Courtney) she has found at the request of her psychiatrist (Stanley Tucci) ends up dead, so she goes out for vengeance.  She has to outwit detectives (Bobby Cannavale and Laverne Cox) to eventually get at the bad guy (David Bradley); Twists ensue.


The action isn't very exciting, the story isn't very compelling, and the charisma I had seen in Beckinsale's work years ago is nowhere to be seen.  It's a dud


It's on Amazon Prime

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The French Dispatch (2021) - IMDb

 

The French Dispatch

 

I like Wes Anderson's movies and this one was no exception.  You always know exactly what you're going to get with all his movies and there's definitely a comfort in that.  

 

This one provided an added quirk that it's a series of different mini-stories that don't really overlap with each other, which keeps things fresh as any story not doing it for you as much will be over shortly and you're on to the next one.  It also provides opportunities for some different filming techniques to set the stories apart which is also fun.


The cast of absolutely full of recognizable actors, scene after seen, including many of Anderson's staples.

 

It's not his best work (my favorites of his are Grand Budapest and Moonrise Kingdom), but it's completely in line with what you should expect from any Anderson film.

 

It's on HBO Max

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I'm sure it does!

I actually want to rewatch all his movies sometime soon.  Actually one will be a first watch; I somehow never saw Darjeeling Limited

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On 2/9/2022 at 10:48 AM, Jay said:

I'm sure it does!

I actually want to rewatch all his movies sometime soon.  Actually one will be a first watch; I somehow never saw Darjeeling Limited

I really love The Darjeeling Limited. It marks the end of his character focused storytelling, to me. After this, the scope of his films expanded quite a bit to be more zany and less personal. 

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I don’t see how you can say Moonrise isn’t character focused.  Anyway I’m really not sure Anderson could make a movie I don’t love.  After 20 years since I first saw Tenenbaums, I have zero critical faculties when it comes to his worlds.  Whatever he wants to do, I’m down.

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I love all his films in some way. But to me, there was a stylistic shift after Darjeeling. The shift isn’t necessarily bad either. I think Grand Budapest is probably his best film. There’s just a certain human quality to Rushmore, Tenenbaums, and Darjeeling that really draws me in. Moonrise and others that follow revel more in the storybook fantasy. 
 

@Jay Make sure you watch Hotel Chevalier before you watch The Darjeeling Limited. 

 

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On 01/09/2022 at 5:14 PM, Jay said:

The Power of the Dog

 

I really liked this movie a lot.  It sure is quite the slow-burn, for a long while I wasn't jiving with the movie much, and was wondering where all this was going.  But then, the ending came.  It was so unpredictable, and in retrospect, so satisfying, that it really made me appreciate the movie as a whole.  This is one of those movies that I didn't sit there wowwed when the end credits starting, but stewing on it as time went on led to me really appreciating it.

That or Dune were the best movies of 2021 to me - I experienced the movie in a similar way, being overwhelmed (and I really mean it) only a couple of days after I had watched it.

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4 hours ago, Koray Savas said:

I really love The Darjeeling Limited. It marks the end of his character focused storytelling, to me. After this, the scope of his films expanded quite a bit to be more zany and less personal. 

 

What!? Moonrise Kingdom is all about the characters! 

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Rasputin features in all his mad, mystic glory in The King's Man final  trailer | Ars Technica

 

The King’s Man

 

OOof.  I really really like the first entry in this franchise, one of the rare movies from the past few decades I actually watched a second time.  The sequel was pretty bad though, with awful pacing, and a plot I did not care for (bringing back to life characters who should have stayed dead, and killing off or sidelining characters I wanted to stay alive).... and so I really had no idea what to expect from this third entry, a prequel about the origins of the Kingsman organization from the first two films.

 

It ended up being a frustrating movie because the idea was fresh and interesting, and for a lot of its runtime it's really interesting and fun... but then by the end a lot of things are bungled and some of the storytelling choices they make ended up rubbing me the wrong way.

 

The World War 1 setting was really nice (there's so many movies set during WW2, the WW1 ones are so rare!) and Ralph Fiennes was a good lead as he sets up the initial spy network that would eventually become Kingsman.  The first big mission that results in a giant, crazy, over the top brawl with Rasputin was excellent!  At this point I almost felt like I had almost already seen a whole movie's worth of entertainment.  Then the film takes a turn I didn't like involving Fiennes' son going off to war, and what results from that, and then the finale on the cliffs with the bad guy and what his motivations were.... it was just all so much "less than" the first half of the movie, I think it tipped the scales to overall putting it in the "meh" category for me, which is a damn shame because the first part had so much promise!


It's like Vaughn thought "well we killed off a main character in the first movie and that was a hit, so let's just keep doing that in every one", but it really just isn't working.  I really hope the planned 3rd entry in the main series is good again because for now they've turned what was an amazing solo movie into a film series with only 1/3 good entries.  Damn.

 

It's on HBO Max and Hulu

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2 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:

Fiennes plays what is essentially a period version of 'M'. Presumably not too much of a stretch for him, lol. 

 

I didn't realize you were talking about Bond (and the King's Man). I was thinking the Peter Lorre film. I thought "What does he know about Fiennes that I don't?!?"

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21 hours ago, Tallguy said:

 

I didn't realize you were talking about Bond (and the King's Man). I was thinking the Peter Lorre film. I thought "What does he know about Fiennes that I don't?!?"


Isn't Lorre a killer of kids in that movie? I can see why alarmed confusion might arise, lol.  

On 10/09/2022 at 12:41 AM, Marian Schedenig said:

Last Night in Soho

 

I came late to the Edgar Wright party. For a long time, Scott Pilgrim on Blu-ray was the only film by him I'd seen (not counting Spielberg's Tintin, which I keep forgetting was co-written by Wright). I saw Shaun of the Dead and the rest of the Cornetto trilogy (of which I wasn't even aware until then) around the time Baby Driver came out, and therefore only saw that later on home video as well. Last Night in Soho was the first of his films (as a director/not counting Tintin) that I absolutely wanted to see in the theatre; I'd seen the trailer and was very much looking forward to it, but with the pandemic I ended up not bothering to go to the cinema for it. Rather lukewarm reviews dampened my excitement a bit, and only this week ended up finally getting the Blu-ray.

 

I'm glad to say that I loved it, at least mostly. Unlike many people, I'm generally a fan of (good) exposition (and therefore end up liking lots of films that are much stronger in their first half), and I think Wright must be as well, because each of his films delights in quickly drawing the viewer into its world with cleverly done exposition. Soho is no different, with a strong lead performance by Thomasin McKenzie (who I didn't know before) that carries the entire film - hers is really the only lead character, the rest of the formidable cast (notably Matt Smith, Terence Stamp, Diana Rigg in a wonderful final role, and Anya Taylor-Joy as more or less the main character in the flashback story) really just have supporting roles, most of them making a lot of impact with a very limited amount of screen time.

 

Another Wright trademark seems to be a focus on meta elements - the Cornetto films, although they certainly draw you into their world and characters, all a very conscious of being parodies; Scott Pilgrim strongly emphasises its comic and video game stylings, and Baby Driver has a strong focus on elaborate action sequences constructed to closely conform to their soundtrack. In all of them, I was very aware of the meta level when watching them, and in fact much of their enjoyment derives from it, but it also means I was never quite fully immersed. Soho seems to be the first of Wright's major films designed to be fully immersive, which was an aspect I was looking forward to very much, and it certainly contributed to my enjoyment. That's not to say that the film doesn't have its share of homages (some of them clearly intentionally obvious), and although the film (like the Cornettos) blends genres (or rather moves through a series of them), it certainly revels in exploiting their tropes, especially so in the last segment, when it finally settles on being a horror film more than anything else. But the narrative always stays within the confines of the film's world, and the meta elements are instead part of that, primarily the ways in which the primary and flashback story lines bleed into each other.

 

That's not to say it's necessarily always entirely successful. It certainly feels a bit uneven, although it shares that with all of Wright's other films, which often seem very differently balanced to me on a second viewing. And like many films that put much emphasis on exposition, the later parts can feel a bit straightforward, or cliched - although Soho is really well constructed in that all the twists and revelations of later scenes are cleverly set up earlier, so I think a second viewing will feel more homogeneous than with the other films. True to the genre, it has its share of red herrings, but they are well integrated and don't feel like cheats.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

All of that is elevated by excellent cinematography (which clearly delights in all the tricks it employs to blend the two narrative levels together, mainly with lots of mirrors) and a spot on songtrack that seamlessly blends with the mostly very effective Steven Price score (given the genre, I'm sure a certain Donaggio similarity in parts of it is hardly accidental).

 

Interestingly, when I first saw the trailer, my first association was Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris - because of the title (I wasn't aware that Soho's title is taken from a song) and the setting. The rest of the trailer made me expect something that is more or less a horror take on the Allen film, and it is in some ways - the concept of the outside main character yearning for an earlier era and being transported at night to a specific place in that era, without being sure at first if it's real or a dream, is surely similar. IMDb also lists a number of acknowledged influences, including Polanski's Repulsion - which is very clear in the film's take on this scene, although I couldn't place the influence while watching it:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

But what IMDb curiously doesn't list is what while watching I became quite convinced of must be a main influence: Robert Wise's 1963 The Haunting. The film is almost like (certainly not a remake, but) a reinvention of that film's premise: A woman with a history of seeing ghosts moves into a haunted house and is slowly drawn into the house's past, losing her grip on reality. The showdown even prominently involves a staircase (though not a spiral one in this case). Soho has a brief shot of wallpaper (or wall texture) in an early scene that seems so reminiscent to Haunting's supremely frightening scene consisting of nothing more than wallpaper and strange noises that I find it hard to believe it could be just an accidental similarity. In fact, with Soho's strong reliance on mirrors, I could well imagine the film's entire concept initially being inspired by this single scene:

ULt34-1.gif

 

Surely not for everyone, but very much for me, and more successful in consistently bringing its ideas and elements together than most entries in the genre.


I really liked it ... Thomasin Mackenzie's character is immensely sympathetic. Perhaps oddly, I find myself still adjusting to Matt Smith playing nasty pieces of work even though he hasn't been the Doctor for almost a decade. 

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2 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:


Isn't Lorre a killer of kids in that movie? I can see why alarmed confusion might arise, lol.  


I really liked it ... Thomasin Mackenzie's character is immensely sympathetic. Perhaps oddly, I find myself still adjusting to Matt Smith playing nasty pieces of work even though he hasn't been the Doctor for almost a decade. 

 

He has pretty much played villains before and since. (Philip is an exception I suppose.) Most of the Doctors did /do. Pertwee and Davison didn't. Eccleston, Tennant, Capaldi certainly. Troughton and Tom Baker definitely. 

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The only thing I'd seen Smith in pre-Who was a BBC drama called Party Animals about the behind-the-scenes staff of political parties.  I think since Who a good deal of his villain parts have been in stage productions that I couldn't get to, films I didn't particularly want to see or shows on streaming platforms that I'm not subscribed to.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

We Broke Up (2021) - IMDb

 

We Broke Up

 

Ooof.  This looked like a harmless romcom starring two good TV actors (William Jackson Harper - Chidi from The Good Place, and Aya Cash - Stormfront from The Boys), but it turned out to be quite the depressing slog.  The premise sounds good on paper - the leads are a couple who break up in the opening scenes, but then attend her sister's wedding pretending they did not to spare the drama from her family.  But instead of hilarity insuing, there was just a lot of drama and endless discussions.  Oh well

 

It's on Hulu

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Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) - IMDb

 

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

 

I finally caught up with this one a little while back now.  I thought it was really good!  Easily one of the most entertaining MCU films in a while; I liked that it told its own story and wasn't bogged down at all with the larger MCU picture (save for some end credit stingers which is a perfectly fine place to do so).  The new characters were all really good, and even Awkwafina didn't annoy me!  It was nice to see Wong and Trevor Slattery again too, and Tony Leung was a good bad guy.

 

A nice respite from the over-serious and over-continuity-driven side of the MCU.


It's on Disney+

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Alana Haim on 'Licorice Pizza' and Acting With Her Sisters

 

Licorice Pizza

 

I caught this on a plane ride earlier this year and enjoyed it!  I was expecting more of a complete story for whatever reason, so was kind of thrown by the fact that it was more like a collection of various adventures these kids get up to over a period of time without much of a strong arc that ties them all together.  But the two leads - Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman - were excellent throughout, really enjoyed their performances.

 

The big scene-stealer was certainly Bradley Cooper as Jon Peters, he was hilarious in his extended cameo, especially when you think it's over, but then he returns in an amusing way.  It was also fun seeing Hoffman's character just continuing coming up with new business plans, his drive for success was really infectious and kept the movie humming along.  His infatuation with Haim's character was less compelling and I would have preferred if she found a different love interest that stuck before the end of the movie.

 

So it's not in the upper echelon of PTA's movies, but a middle teir PTA movie is still more interesting to watch than a lot of other movies being made today.  I don't see myself being compelled to rewatch this one any time soon though

 

It's on Amazon, now - I think it showed up there like a week after I got back from my trip, d'oh!

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Last Night in Soho (2021) | MUBI

 

Last Night In Soho

 

I caught this on a plane ride earlier this year after waiting for it to turn up streaming somewhere for a while and it hadn't yet; Of course it showed up on HBO not longer after I got home, d'oh!

 

At least it was quite easy to stay completely engaged on the plane, as the movie really draws you into its world pretty nicely.  I ended up losing interesting in the hows and whys of what happened to Anya Taylor Joy's character, and how it relates to the various old characters in the modern timeline, but still found it visually interesting throughout.

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

Last Night In Soho

 

I caught this on a plane ride earlier this year after waiting for it to turn up streaming somewhere for a while and it hadn't yet; Of course it showed up on HBO not longer after I got home, d'oh!

 

I liked it a lot (see above). A plane viewing can't do it justice.

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I read your post!

 

I frankly just wasn't as enraptured by the movie as you were, and a second viewing - even under the most possible optimal viewing conditions that exist - isn't going to change that for me

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Eternals.

 

What the hell are these critics on about now? This is a good movie! A very good movie! How the hell is Black Widow better? There’s nothing wrong with this one. It doesn’t have moronic fathers, unnecessary additions (Florence Pugh), Rachel Weisz with a Russian accent… or a mediocre score. I don’t understand these people.

So I really liked it. The cast is mostly great, particularly Madden and Chan. Well, okay, Sprite wasn’t great, but still. Kit Harrington, hmm, okay, fine. The humour took a while to grow on me, but I accepted it in the end. It works. Nothing more to say, really.

Oh yes, of course. The score. I never understood why Djawadi got so much bashing for Iron Man. Was it because we can’t have electric guitars or catchy main themes in scores? This score is much better than IM, though. Sadly, I didn’t hear too much of it because both the volume of the sound effects and audio description were working against it, but there’s beautiful cello and flute writing, a great, great main theme, amazing choral contributions… And the songs are great too. It’s all great! Ooh, more credits music, good. Go to hell, Rotten Tomatoes.

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9 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Eternals.

 

What the hell are these critics on about now? This is a good movie! Go to hell, Rotten Tomatoes.

 

Agreed. Even my son, who watches every Marvel movie, hasn't seen it, and it's probably due to the bad rap. 

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I thought it looked great visually and the bashing from critics and marvel fans was unjustified as it wasn't even close to as bad as the reviews made it seem. However there were too many characters that you were supposed to care about after a very short amount of time. I love the score though so I'm happy that there will be a sequel just for that reason alone.

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Eternals is top 10 MCU for me, maybe even higher. I think it was a victim of the declining enthusiasm for Marvel from critics. Plus it had a lot of hype as a potential oscar-player with Zhao and from statements made by Feige and early rumours. Which in hindsight is all ridiculous. But I keep throwing Eternals on, I'm always in the mood for some sad robots. 

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7 hours ago, Jules said:

Eternals is top 10 MCU for me, maybe even higher. I think it was a victim of the declining enthusiasm for Marvel from critics. Plus it had a lot of hype as a potential oscar-player with Zhao and from statements made by Feige and early rumours. Which in hindsight is all ridiculous. But I keep throwing Eternals on, I'm always in the mood for some sad robots. 

Yeah, somehow I was invested in them and not in Westworld. Then again, this only lasted 2 hours.

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Eternals in an interesting one because I actually quite dig the basic concept and I like the directing style. And I did like the score too. What really fails the film is the actual storytelling. I just feel this remarkable story is told in a completely flat way in which characters constantly explain the plot and every idea. And they seem to do it multiple times too. It feels overlong and ponderous, overwrought and underwrought at the same time. It should have been a mini-series.

 

Karol 

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Jay mentioned watching movies on flights ... are they still censored nowadays, or is there a content warning beforehand? 

I remember watching either The Whole Nine Yards or the sequel on a flight once and thinking 'Wow, these are some of the least potty-mouthed mobsters I've ever come across'.   

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A brief Q&A with actor Holt McCallany – Wrath of Man, Mindhunter, Lights  Out |

 

Wrath of Man

 

Ooof.  I really liked The Gentleman, and hoped that Guy Ritchie was back baby, but nope.  This is quite the slog, just dark, violent, kind of depressing, and not very interesting.

 

Jason Statham stars as the lookout for a criminal gang who ends up losing his son during a bank robbery gone wrong, who joins an armored truck security company to try to find out who is responsible; The plot keeps twisting and turning from there and none of it was very compelling or believable.  Not even the action scenes are very interesting.  A misfire.

 

It's on Amazon Prime

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