What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?

[weirdfeline]

Mercy starring Chris Pratt benefits greatly from low expectations. It ended up being a decent little thriller.

[Cartagia]

The Apple Dumpling Gang - It's cute! Some genuine laughs, a couple of surprisingly cool stunts sequences, but, like pretty much all live-action Disney from the era, it is hobbled by kids who are both too cutesy by half and not great actors.

Stalker - Far too well-crafted and gorgeous to be boring, but it is a bit ponderous (I hit my 'Yeah, I get it' point with about 20-25 minutes left). I do love the ambiguity of just how much (if any?) power the Zone has. How much of what occurs is just the characters cracking under the potential of what might happen? All of it? None of it?

The Front Page - Cynical journalism and corrupt politicians? Take out the transatlantic accents and it's basically the state of modern media.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple - Two biggest things I loved: the fact that it expects you to have seen the previous movies so it doesn't explain shit and that final major needle drop. Rest of the movie bangs, too, but those two things were tailor-made for me.

Play Dirty - Not without its moments (it is a Shane Black flick after all), but it is definitely one of his weaker efforts. Looks like crap, and the plot gets significantly less interesting when it switches from a revenge tale to a heist.

Blade Runner 2049 - Just as gorgeous as the original, with, what was for me, a more compelling narrative. I do think it gets a little messy in the last act and Gosling doesn't have quite the same magnetic presence as Ford did, but those are pretty minor quibbles in the grand scheme. Denis is the man.

Before Midnight - A shatteringly realistic follow-up to the romantic fantasies of Sunrise and Sunset. Yes, Celine is a more resentful and unhappy person, but that completely makes sense with where she would naturally end up if she and Jesse got together. She was this beautiful free spirit who feels trapped by her family. It's a wonderful performance from Delpy, and the best Hawke has been in these films.

Winchester '73 - Just a great motion picture. I saw this once like 25 years ago, and it was even better than I remembered. Wild that this was the first collaboration between Jimmy Stewart and Anthony Mann. Pretty much nailed the dynamic right out of the box.

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life - I thought I'd seen this before, but I guess it was only a couple of sketches. This is minute for minute one of the funniest films ever made. 100% hit rate for me.

Clearcut - Powerhouse performance from Graham Greene. RIP, King.

Hard Boiled - Man, I forgot how comically evil the villains get at the end of this. Secret lair, bombs in hospitals, straight up execution of hostages. Insane. Almost justifies the wanton destruction by the cops. Incredible stuff.

Tiptoes - This is so goddamn fascinating. In a movie where Gary Oldman plays a little person by walking on his knees (which is both impressive and distracting) nearly every other decision is just as baffling. The tone is all over the place, the script is laughably on the nose, its heart is the right place, but it's so condescending, and it is so self-serious it feels like a parody.  I have to see the Director's Cut.

An American in Paris - I love how this looks, and the extended dance sequences is are terrific, but I don't find any of the songs that memorable. Also, Gene Kelly basically bullies a lady so much she breaks up with her perfectly nice and charming fiancé she seems to really love. Also, his rich patron is an absolute simp over him.

[Cartagia]

I've been on a tear for the first month of the year, having logged 37 different movies since Jan. 1.

Replicant - This is completely insane. Ostensibly a JCVD vehicle that is, honestly, worse off because of him. I love the guy, but the dual characters here are just out of his reach as a performer. That doesn't mean it's not entertaining, though! Ambulance chase at the end is legitimately incredible.

Diablo - Peak DTV actioner. It has got a little bit of everything; kung-fu, shoot outs, a James Bond villain, obvious plot twists. Decent performances all across the board, rather than super spotty, including an 'annoying kid' who is giving a genuinely great performance and has a surprisingly interesting character arc. Two aspects not usually associated with younger actors in these things.

Oklahoma! - The songs are bland and it is not as gay as I expected (derogatory).

Tai-Chi Master - A ton of fun. Great action, terrific performances, engaging story. Doesn't really let any cringe or misogynistic humor squeak through, which is a problem for a lot these, but still manages to actually be funny.

Send Help - Raimi proves that he's absolutely still got the sauce, with a huge assist from barn-burner performance from Rachel McAdams. Funny, gross, scary, and it keeps you guessing about where exactly it is going until the very end. Occasionally clunky CGI is the biggest misstep here.

The Rip - Went in expecting a shoot 'em up and got a slow-burn chamber mystery instead - that still gets pretty shooty at the end!

Best in Show - Not gonna lie, watching Catherine O'Hara win at the end of this made me a little emotional.

Zathura - The VFX are great (Zorgons look sick), and it's fine enough for kids' fare, but the little brother is insufferable. Josh Hutcherson is right, it was all his fault, and he never really seemed to learn a lesson. Also not sure how any of the timey-wimey stuff worked. Best not to dwell on it.

[weirdfeline]

'The Burbs has been on my radar for a very long time now but I've never watched it until now. For whatever reason, it got into my head that this was an anthology movie so I had much less interest. It isn't at all. I loved everything about this movie, especially the ending that was so obviously added to make audiences happy and not what they originally intended. There's a ton of similarities to the director's later work Small Soldiers which is one of my favorite movies ever. Never heard of Rick Ducommun before but he stole the show. RIP to him. I now feel compelled to watch as much behind the scenes stuff as I can find.

[Cartagia]

Train Dreams - Absolutely gorgeous and moving exploration of life at the turn of the century.  One of the best films of last year.

A Working Man - Statham can carry a movie like this in his sleep, and Ayer is a completely servicable director for this stuff, but the script is terrible. A full third of the movie could have been avoided (a real problem for a movie that is already too long) if Statham had bothered to look through the cellphones in his possession after talking to the very first suspect. Not exactly a Taken level of skills and Beekeeper it is not. The big action finale almost makes it worthwhile.

Pain & Gain - Michael Bay uses his signature style for a true crime drama, and it's pretty much a perfect match. Especially for these particular crimes.

Batman Begins - Just as good as I remembered. Maybe even a little better. That weapon that evaporates water would definitely just kill everyone, though.

[kamikazekeeg]

Been a few since I watched too much, but saw that 28 Years Later was up to watch and checked it out.  I really loved the first movie, the second movie was just alright, mostly just a really intense opening, but I think I like this third movie more than the second, but probably not as much as 28 Days Later, though it's been years since I've watched it, it's impossible to watch, or it was, seems like it's up on AMC+, but I ain't signing up for anything else anymore, but I'll get to it again someday.

I like this, because it feels more like just telling a simple story, with a couple characters, in tense situations, much like the first movie.  I wasn't sure if I was gonna like the idea of the virus "evolving", I thought it was gonna kinda turn things into more regular zombie flicks (It's sort of a zombie movie depending on how you view the concept, but these are still living, breathing, humans), but I think it works enough here, the infected just becoming functionally angry feral animals, living off the land.  The "Alpha" stuff is a tad sillier, but they explain it just enough to be like "alright, I'll just follow along" lol Main cast are good, solid kid character.  I'm not sure if I love some of the camera work and such, I guess it's almost a throwback vibe to kinda early 2000's filmmaking, more snapshots and odd camera turns throughout, but at least it keeps it interesting.

The ending is tonal whiplash, really absurd, but I think that's sorta supposed to be the point, but I don't know, I guess we'll see how they utilize that with the sequel that just released, which just came out digital, but will be awhile before cheap rental or normal streaming hits.

(Apparently the ending song connects to the opening that I never caught, but now makes it way more crazy with other elements, hope Bone Temple is decent.)

Fantastic Four: First Steps - Finally got around to this one, and it's overall quite solid.  It's a good in progress super hero movie.  The 60's scifi vibe is great, though I hate that once again they hold back on the color, things kinda being abit washed out, wish they'd stop, MCU can often be afraid of vibrancy, especially something that is trying to emulate a property like FF4 where it could be a crazy colorful thing back in the day.  The movie overall reminds me of the new Superman, a similar vibe with the wholesomeness, of people trying to do their best, it's very classic superhero vibes not just in the setting and it's nice to have that.

I do not know where this goes with Doomsday, I'm kinda not feeling it, bringing back folks that had retired from the role in a kinda permanent way, RDJ coming back, but as a Doom, but not a Stark version of Doom or maybe he is, we don't know, I just don't love it.  I'm kinda over the nostalgia tripping, bringing back these people or the fox era X-Men again, I kinda hit my limit of that with Deadpool & Wolverine, where it was a nice final nod to that era of Marvel.  We'll see, maybe the story is good enough, maybe it'll go in very interesting ways, who knows.