Last Film You Watched? VI

All non-Nolan related film, tv, and streaming discussions.
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The Vast of Night (2019) :thumbup: :thumbdown:
drama, thriller
actors: Sierra McCormick, Jake Horowitz

Maybe would have been a single thumb up only if the middle chunk wasn't just an episode of the Art Bell radio program where people tell stories. I started to fall asleep. Wonder what these guys could do if they had more a budget to work with. Liked the actors.

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The Old Guard (2020) :thumbdown:
drama, action
actors: Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne

Confusing beginning, underwhelming dialogue scene direction, generic villain plot, weak score and soundtrack, solid action. By the end it felt like an overly long set up for another movie, guess that makes sense it's based on a comic. I liked Nile's (KiKi Layne) character but was less than enthused by the rest of them. I would have been more interested in the search for that missing female character that I won't name here which I thought might have more to do with the movie but I guess that's just going to have to wait if there's another one but I'm less excited now than I would have been before.

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my scale
:thumbup: :thumbup: = highest recommendation (rewatch)
:thumbup: = good recommendation (rewatch)
:thumbup: :thumbdown: = average/middling/mediocre (would rewatch if a friend suggested it first)
:thumbdown: = below average/not recommended (no rewatch unless marathoning as part of a series)
:thumbdown: :thumbdown: = extremely bad/not recommended (no rewatch)

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Location: Poland
I wasn't a fan of The Vast of Night as well. Super long takes to hide budget limitations were too obvious and the whole film felt like watching a true crime podcast but without the thrill of true crime or a feel of a twist, instead we get a ridiculous and somehow obvious ending. A couple of neat camera shots referencing Evil Dead, solid acting and set design is about all I can praise this movie with.

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Liar Liar
First time I watched this. while I'm aware that Jim Carrey was doing a lot of physical comedy back in the day, I have a) not watched many of his comedies (I watched Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind a couple of years ago and I watched the Truman show but that's about it) and b) I found some of the grimaces and strange voices he made to be a more annoying/embarassing than funny. When he gets to verbally spar with someone he's much better. Likely poof that what was funny in the 90s is not necessarily guaranteed to be funny now. The set-up is simple enough and there are a number of good gags but I don't think the scumbag Jim Carrey plays should get to have that kind of ending.

Annihilation
Natalie Portman is good in this but the pacing is slow at times. I like intelligent sci-fi but this film seems to have been made by someone who discovered films like John Carpenter's The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers and it blew their mind and they assumed noone else had watched these films. I like the visuals and there are definitely some creepy moments in this but it does not rise above a simple 'good'. There is something missing at could make it great and imo slow, stern and ponderous can easily slip into pretensious and this film comes dangerously close to that. I appreciate the thematic underpinnings but it lacks that special thing that could make it great.

BRUH


The Wizard of Oz is the Lord of the Rings of movies

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Palm Springs
You know, I really didn't expect to like this, but oddly I found myself not wanting this to end. It isn't the best movie of the year or anything, but it was pretty entertaining.

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Jason and the Argonauts
Makes me wish we had more films adapting Greek mythology nowadays. The effects are fun (Talos is still an excellent cinematic creation) and the story is what you would expect. The music is distinct and unique and while the dialogue is a bit theatrical, I can live with that.

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Life Force (1985) :thumbdown:
horror

Some neat looking space scenes but this space vampire (more like a zombie movie) never really came together for me. Some interesting ideas (like a man's inner desire horribly twisted and manifested) poorly executed.

Run All Night (2015) :thumbup:
thriller, crime drama

The editing was annoying when it can’t hold a shot for a second, but I was otherwise engaged the whole way through. This is definitely a ‘fathers and sons’ movie where two characters are morally drawn back in the direction of their relative. Much better than that wannabe Taken/Fargo/Tarantino monstrosity Neeson Cold Pursuit movie I last reviewed and didn't think was good.

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Ready or Not (2019)
I watched this film twice in the last two days so I don't need to say I love the film: the simple yet effective premise, the dark humour, the great central performance and that awesome ending. One of the best films of last year for sure and one that can be revisited over and over again.

Haywire (2011)
Why don't we get more films like this where tough women kick men's asses all over the world? The story is kinda not important here but the action is well-choreographed and Gina Carano is given a good enough performance that you believe she's just that lethal.

Salt (2010)
This film I was less impressed with. I'm kinda over the secret Russian spy plot, though I will give the film this: it had me going for a little while in the middle and then the twist toward the end happened and it made it a bit more generic. Overall, it's fine but I fail to see much that makes it stand out aside from Angelina Jolie playing the central character.

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The Bourne Trilogy - These still hold up, but the most fascinating thing about them is how they seem downright quaint post-Snowden. What once seemed borderline fantastical and heightened near sci-fi suddenly feels obvious. Ultimatum is one of the defining texts of the Bush era.


-Vader

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Location: stuck in 2020
That trilogy is so fucking good

And one of the very few where the films get better, the third one is just *chefs kiss*

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