What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?

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28 Days Later - Haven't seen this since like 2003.  First act remains an absolute masterclass, and the third act works way better for me now, but it is still a pretty jarring shift in tone.  Mixed results from the SD picture quality.

A Real Pain - Funny, touching, tremendously acted, and barely 90 minutes.  A real triumph.

Predator: Killer of Killers - It looks stunning and it's the absolute best use of the overall premise since the original.  Uses the medium to show some real balls out action sequences that would never work in live action but feel right at home in animation.  It starts to stretch credulity a bit too much by the third act, and the connective tissue aspect that marries the eras together robs a bit of the tension.  I'd watch 2 or 3 more of these, but the basic concept would start running itself dry by then.

Pale Rider - Feels like a more traditional Western than Clint's other works in genre, but it's no less a well-crafted film than the majority of those, either.  Just a little sillier and a little lighter, it's still a very entertaining time at the pictures.

28 Weeks Later - While I liked Days a little bit more on this revisit, I liked Weeks a little less.  Bigger, shinier, and more bombastic, it just doesn't hit on the same emotional level, despite having a couple of sequences that put the first to shame in the horror department.

Popeye - Like a series of SNL sketches where the first one bombed, but the cast loved it, and kept bringing it back.  There are a few laughs scattered throughout, and the cast is 100% committed (obligatory Shelly Duvall shout-out), and the production design is impeccable.  All that being said it's aimless, paced pretty poorly, and the songs all basically dirges that are not helped at all by the piss poor sound mixing.  Handily the worst Altman I've seen, but worth watching at least once as a curiosity.

Austin Powers in Goldmember - Absolutely the worst of these, but was still better than I remembered.  Has a fair number of new ideas, but it also recycles a fair few bits, which was also a major flaw in the second film.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind - The Neary family drama stuff is tremendously acted, but it just doesn't engage me the way the logistical side of things does.  Watching people figure stuff out is one of my favorite things to see portrayed on screen, and this movie does it phenomenally well.

It also looks like a million bucks.  Maybe the most well-shot of any of Spielberg's work.

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Finished the first season of the new Rurouni Kenshin series, and I liked it fair amount.  Occasionally had some tonal whiplash, but I was generally into it by the end.

For a Few Dollars More - Almost unfathomably cool.  Makes more use of idiosyncratic filmmaking flourishes than Leone's other spaghetti Westerns, and, like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Clint arguably isn't even the main character. Oddly not as well-paced as Leone's even longer films.

In a Violent Nature - The concept is really strong, but it needed to commit to it 100%.  Every time the focus actually shifts off Johnny it gets a little bit worse.  The (purposely I assume) generic dialogue would have gone down a lot easier with better performances, and that might have helped.

Kindergarten Cop - I think the problems a lot of people have with this movie is that they think just because it has kids in it that means it is a kids' movie. It's not. It's an action conedy that has kids as a plot element. This movie wouldn't work if Arnold didn't have excellent chemistry with the children, and thankfully it's fantastic.

Zodiac - Paced perfectly and plotted immaculately. Amazing cast, incredibly editing... just incredible filmmaking.

The In-Laws - Peter Falk is so goddamn funny in this. It's a bit like George Clooney in O Brother, where every single line is hilarious. And Arkin is one of the finest straight men of all-time here.  I've never seen a character be so utterly finished with the movie around them.

Really liked the second season of Rurouni Kenshin.  Better overall plot, more interesting animation, more consistency.

The Terminator Zero anime on Netflix has a ton of really cool ideas, but there's also a fair amount of padding.  There's also a pretty big problem with either the capability of the terminator or the plot armor of the lead... probably the latter since we see rooms full of cops and soldiers get merc'd.

Coogan's Bluff - What an odd picture.  It has the standard bits and bobs from 60s pictures that haven't aged too well, but they aren't really the problem here.  Tone is all over the place, and the humor and romance are both kinda flat.  Cop stuff is fine, it just takes too long to really get going.

The Wedding Singer - My favorite of Sandler's 90s output by a pretty wide margin.  Not as ridiculous or high concept as the others, which lets Sandler turn in his best performance of the decade.  It's easy to see why he and Drew made a few more after this, but never quite captured the magic again.

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28 Weeks Later - I think the biggest issue with this movie is the fact that it's really just two different movies back to back.  But both are pretty good!  It also completely sidesteps one of my least favorite zombie / dystopia tropes, which was enough to offset how perplexed I was by the final moments.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen - A bit more slow-paced than I recalled, but still a delight.  Just amazing art direction here.