What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?

[kamikazekeeg]

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back - On rewatch after a couple years away, it seems like my tastes have shifted slightly over the past few years.  I was pretty sure I had Empire above A New Hope on fave's, but they are kinda neck and neck now.  A New Hope is just a nice beginning to end story, they could've just ended the series there and it would've been fine, the story was overall unfinished, but it was just this one story of this world and it worked fine. 

Empire hinges a lot more on the 1st act of the movie with Hoth than I thought, I love that entire sequence, and while Dagobah is good character stuff, the Bespin stuff is kind of a weak point for me, and it very much feels like a middle film.  It's an enjoyable watch and I do enjoy Vader and Luke's fight, it doesn't have the dazzle of later era fights, but it works a lot more than how Vader/Kenobi fight was as there's a lot of passion to it.

Always interesting to see something in a slightly different light than how it was before.  I don't think much will have changed with Jedi, but we'll see.

[Cartagia]

Hot Fuzz - One of those movies that just gets better every single time you watch it.  Whip smart script, insane editing.  Just incredible.

Beetlejuice - Gives you just enough world-building to serve the supernatural part of the plot, but not one iota more. The moment you ask a question not relevant to the plot ot falls apart, and that's why it's 100% perfect world-building.

Furiosa - It's no Fury Road, but what is?

[wuddy6]

Just finished Perfect Blue and whoa, that movie left me shaken. Satoshi Kon truly crafted a masterpiece of psychological horror. Mima's descent into fractured reality was terrifying and relatable, blurring the lines between idol fantasy and disturbing obsession. The animation perfectly captured the growing sense of unease, and the ending...man, that ending is still messing with my head

[Cartagia]

Project X - It's a bit insufferable until the party starts, but once it gets going its fun enough and has a few decent laughs.

Bend of the River - A sturdy and well told Western with some anti-capitalist themes.

Anatomy of a Fall - This has some really incredible individual moments, and couple of great performances, but it feels like any one of dozens hard boiled or true crime series that have been saturating the market lately. I did walk away wondering how accurate of a portrayal of the French legal system is, because it felt a lot like Phoenix Wright at times.

Bernie - Not sure that this execution would have worked with any director other than Linklater.  His penchant for making things feel so natural really makes the talking head sections pop.

Babe: Pig in the City - A drastically different film than the previous, and utterly delightful, picture, which makes for a near fever-dreamlike experience. A George Miller picture through and through.  Must be seen to be believed.

[kamikazekeeg]

Stars Wars: Return of the Jedi - I forgot how much this movie craters with the Ewoks.  I'm totally on board with things up to the Scout Trooper chase, and then the movie falls flat on its face when the bears show up lol I think in general, the movie just isn't very good at that point.  The Emperor/Darth Vader/Luke stuff is decent, but that's kinda all I got for basically the second half of the movie.  Definitely the weakest of the three original movies even still.

Also man do the prequel additions to this movie hurt abit right at the end.  I understand why, it creates cohesion between the films retroactively, but I feel if someone is introducing these movies to someone new, it should always be in release order.  Original, Prequel, Sequel.  Doing that though, people at the end are introduced to a young man that you could of course assume is Anakin, but never saw before, and all sorts of random cities celebrating the Empire's destruction that they would have no knowledge.  Really just another reason that very explicitly shows why the special editions are bad and have always been bad.

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace - I kinda hate the revisionism the prequels have had lately, at least with Phantom Menace, people acting like the dislike for Phantom Menace in particular was a later thing because of Youtube and not that the movie was actually considered a mixed bag back in the day and even disliked by many.  I know I grew up with it and even at the time as a kid, I didn't love it. 

As the years have gone on, the movie has aged poorly with its CG, the writing and dialogue is poor, a lot of the acting isn't very good because of that writing and direction, we've seen actors talk about how rough it could be trying to act in blue screened voids, and Jar Jar Binks actively makes the movie worse in every scene he's in, which is in far too many scenes, and if it wasn't for Pod Racing, I'd have nothing with this movie.  Just makes me want to play Episode 1 Racer again lol A random note about Pod Racing, but I think it works because so much of the scene has very little dialogue going on, the CG is at its best here, and no Jar Jar Binks yapping on.  Basically everything I dislike about the movie isn't at play here lol  I go back and forth on the Darth Maul fight, it's generally fine, the stall is kinda lame, and the ending is bad.

This is still the worst Star Wars movie to me.  Phantom Menace is a more cohesive and better put together movie than something like Rise of Skywalker, but I'll take entertaining slop, over absolute boredom for much of the film.  Attack of the Clones up next is another in the run for bottom of the pile for Star Wars movies.

[Cartagia]

Night at the Museum - The supporting cast is really what makes this work.  Robin Williams stealing every scene, Dick Van Dyke having a ball, Mickey Rooney just being absolutely feral.  Stiller and the story are just passable, even if it is a bit nonsensical.  Definitely worse family fare out there.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian - Definitely a weaker narrative than the first, but there's a lot less downtime, plus it's got Bill Hader and Amy Adams, so it's kind of a wash.

[kamikazekeeg]

Killer Klowns From Outer Space - Watched a good bit of the new game and realized I had never seen the movie, or don't remember it all, but it's shockingly well put together lol Like the idea is super dumb, but they know it's ridiculous and embrace it.  They actually play everything fairly straight with the townspeople, it's a cheesy 80's movie still, but they leave the absurdity to the clowns for the most part, and it works lol The costumes, the sets, the props, it's all so well done.  It's definitely not a movie to take too seriously, though I think it has like 2 or 3 genuinely creepy moments.

I also really appreciate how they do absolutely nothing to explain how anything works with the clowns.  Their powers, their gadgets, what they are, it's all absurd and ridiculous and you just are meant to go along with it .  None of that needs to be explained, they are just wacky as hell alien clowns lol This is a recommend if you dig the more goofy comedy side of horror.  It's something you put up there alongside stuff like Gremlins.

[Cartagia]

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb - Surprisingly emotional finale  to this trilogy. The most confidently made of the three, even if still has some cringe-worthy and juvenile moments.  Dan Stevens walks away with the movie, which should not be a shock.

[kamikazekeeg]

Baki Hanma vs Kengan Ashura - Didn't even realize this had released.  Never watched Kengan Ashura, the anime I saw was CG and I didn't think it looked to great, but Baki Hanma is a great fight show.  I wouldn't say it's usually the best animation wise, but what it makes up for with that is by having the fighters be the most insane fighting characters ever with wild backstories and over the top action.  Kengan Ashura might be similar, I'm not sure, but being that the first fight is against a guy who toughened his body be fracturing bones and healing them to make them stronger, or use to bash his head with a hammer or hit on rocks to do the same, shows that these are both very similar stories I guess lol

There's no story to this, it knows what it is, it's a fight show, so there's no justification for the crossover other than it's two organizations coming together to fight because the heads of both got drunk one night together.  It's everything I expected out of a Baki Hanma production.  Grotesquely muscular men beating the ever loving crap out of each other in even more bloody ways and horrific ways.  It's not a show I'd recommend to anyone just because it's so dumb and ridiculous, but I love anime like this.

[Cartagia]

Hit Man - Wildly genre-fluid, to the point where I could never predict what was going happen next because it was so expertly switching between them.  Smoldering chemistry between the leads, but it takes spends a little too long establishing its concept before hitting to those highs.

The Silencing - Gorgeous and moody with a great cast (even if some are wasted). The script is high on concept, but stumbles in execution, particularly the dialogue department.

They Came Together - Great cast, great gags.  Doesn't quite reach the highs of Wet Hot American Summer, but still wildly hilarious.

Dick Tracy - Just one of the coolest looking films ever made.  Script needs just a little more punch, though, as it drags a little for something that's only a buck 45.

Hard Target 2 - Mostly solid DTV sequel with a decent cast.  Adkins is his usual stalwart self as the lead, while Robert Knepper and Temura Morrison give the right amount of gravitas for the heavies.

Bulletproof Monk - I think the first 10 minutes are legitimately great, but once the prologue is over it tanks pretty hard.  It's got some Hong Kong sensibilities in the production, but Seann William Scott is unfortunately just is not up for what this film needed - which is in no small part due to the painfully generic dialogue.

[kamikazekeeg]

Godzilla x Kong - Finally got to rewatch this, loved it, it's such a fun time, but the initial negative I had for the movie, is still the same here.  I think they took things too far into the actiony direction, it's too fast, you lose all sense of scale, especially when not in a city, but even then, it doesn't feel like they are truly in that city, it's a weird playground for them in the wrong way. A lot of that has to do with the monsters speed, the camera angles, it was a similar problem to Pacific Rim: Uprising I feel.  Again, super fun movie, very Showa era feeling with all the goofiness happening, but I'm hoping the next movie is about Godzilla prominently again and they focus on emphasizing their size again.

Also this movie might have the best overall human story.  Cranston's plot was great in 2014, but his sons story was kinda "eh".  KOTM had good ideas, but the humans kinda get unimportant after like the first third of the movie.  Godzilla vs Kong started the involvement of the girl and Kong and they tried to make the other group more involved, but it's mixed  This one though, they are pretty consistently involved in the movie up till the Titans are sent top side and the crew is good fun. 

[Cartagia]

Darkman - A singular maximalist vision that only Sam Raimi could have made. It feels like a parody of something that doesn't exist.

[kamikazekeeg]

Rite Here, Rite Now - Been a while since I've seen a concert at the movies...I think the last thing I did, was the Big Four: Live from Sofia show they broadcast to theater, which was a lot of fun, but that was 2010 lol Not something I normally do, but Ghost is a big favorite these days and with the story elements thrown in, I was curious to see what the next phase of Ghost was gonna be.  I wasn't sure if it was the mix for the movie or the theater, but I felt like the lead guitar at specific points was very turned down, which was kinda not the best, but it wasn't unlistenable or anything.  Sorta think it was 50/50 mix and the theater itself, but I guess we'll see once they release the movie normally.

Fun time though, worth going if you are a fan.

[kamikazekeeg]

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones - Movies like this and Phantom are kind of the reason I roll my eyes when people say that "Star Wars is ruined" because of recent stuff.  I'm not gonna defend all the new stuff, some of it isn't good, but as years go on, I see Star Wars much more as a mixed bag of quality.  For all the good, there's plenty of bad, old and new.  Lucas made a ton of glaring mistakes, much of them centered on the first two prequels.

This one is at least mildly more tolerable than Phantom Menace, but not by alot.   Jar Jar antics are replaced with intolerable dialogue, most of it coming from Anakin.  So much of the acting feels flat, even though these actors can do better.  There are some okay moments, but I don't feel like much really stands out here for me.  With Phantom, I at the very least had the Pod Racing scene as a big win for me, love watching it.  With Attack of the Clones, the city chase is okay, Jango vs Obi-Wan is okay...kinda it.  Genosha sucks. 

A part of me likes when Clone Troopers show up, I feel like I've softened on them slightly, though I hate that they are all CG.  I didn't need to see like a 100 real people in armor, just have a number of them be people in real armor so that they can directly interact with the main cast.  These Prequels are so CG heavy to begin with, there needed to be more practical, not less.

It can only go up from here.  These two have always been the worst movies and I don't think that has changed.  Rise of Skywalker is fundamentally more wrong for what they did story wise, but I wasn't nearly so bored with it.

[Cartagia]

The Creator - The only other director that understands how to structure and scale VFX at this level is James Cameron. It's a shame the story is a mush of basic sci-fi ideas and on the nose commentary with a pretty bland motivation for the lead character.

A Million Ways to Die in the West - Just like The Orville, it is at its best when it is just being a comedic take on a traditional western and totally servicablewhen playing it straight. It's at the weakest when being too self-aware and Seth MacFarlane keeps winking at the camera. If you're going to comment on the racism of the era, you cont be this lazy about it.  Not quite enough plot or jokes to be nearly 2 hours, though.  Its not bad, but tight 90 would have really put it over the top.  I laughed at more of the jokes than I didn't, Charlize Theron gives a genuinely good performance, and the comedic chemistry between Giovanni Ribisi and Sarah Silverman was great.