What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?

[kamikazekeeg]

Sisu - Went in thinking this was supposed to be like a WW2 John Wick, I feel that's how it was advertised, or something I saw, but it's a lot less John Wick and more Quentin Tarantino, just without the dialogue and character interactions.  I see the "John Wick" element, one man fighting brutally against a lot of men, a known boogeyman threat, but it's not like highly choreographed and slick grounded action, it's very over the top, a big western vibe, bordering on abit of hyper violence at times, abit "grindhouse" if you will.  Ends in kind of an absurd way that sorta feels like they didn't really have a good way for him to survive, he's just stupidly luckily, but overall it's fine.  It's kinda just a cheezy nazi killing action flick, nothing wrong with that.

[Cartagia]

Deep Red - Starting to think that giallo isn't really my bag.  It's not like I hated this, but I find myself thinking stuff like, "Well it was nice that it was coherent."  It looks and sounds incredible, but like pretty much every other Argento I've seen, I just couldn't get that invested for some reason.

The Train Robbers - Leisurely paced, even at only 90 minutes, this later era John Wayne picture tries to straddle the line between the 1970s revisionist era and the earlier classic Hollywood Western.  It does mostly a good job, but could use a bit more grit and consequences.  Great, and unexpected, ending.

[dhaabi]

Deep Red - Starting to think that giallo isn't really my bag.  It's not like I hated this, but I find myself thinking stuff like, "Well it was nice that it was coherent."  It looks and sounds incredible, but like pretty much every other Argento I've seen, I just couldn't get that invested for some reason.

The only Argento films I've watched are Deep Red and Suspiria, and I sort of feel the same way. I'd like to watch at least one or two more some day before coming to an opinion, though. At the very least, I'd like to watch more of his films if only to listen to Goblin. Personally, I found myself enjoying Deep Red far more than Suspiria since the story for the latter is so underdeveloped. Deep Red is also the only giallo film I've watched, but I remember there being elements I really liked that maybe are just representative of the genre but still not being overly thrilled by it. It's often regarded as the genre's best, but I have a feeling there are lesser-known contemporaries I'd better connect with.

[Cartagia]

Deep Red - Starting to think that giallo isn't really my bag.  It's not like I hated this, but I find myself thinking stuff like, "Well it was nice that it was coherent."  It looks and sounds incredible, but like pretty much every other Argento I've seen, I just couldn't get that invested for some reason.

The only Argento films I've watched are Deep Red and Suspiria, and I sort of feel the same way. I'd like to watch at least one or two more some day before coming to an opinion, though. At the very least, I'd like to watch more of his films if only to listen to Goblin. Personally, I found myself enjoying Deep Red far more than Suspiria since the story for the latter is so underdeveloped. Deep Red is also the only giallo film I've watched, but I remember there being elements I really liked that maybe are just representative of the genre but still not being overly thrilled by it. It's often regarded as the genre's best, but I have a feeling there are lesser-known contemporaries I'd better connect with.

Today just happens to be Argento's birthday!  I've also seen Inferno and Tenebrae, and I've got the same general opinion on those as well.  Lots of style, not quite enough substance, but killer soundtracks.

Return of the Jedi - Sure, it's a little messy narratively (Leia being Luke's sister really does come out of nowhere), and it has probably taken a bit of a reputational hit because a lot of the issues with the modern state of the franchise originate here, but it is still maybe the most purely watchable of the original trilogy.  The throne room confrontation is probably my favorite material in Star Wars, while Jabba's Palace and the final space battle are two of the best setpieces of all time, let alone in Star Wars.

Wild Wild West - Jesus christ. It's not without its merits, like some aspects of its production design, Kenneth Branaugh's delightfully unhinged performance, and I laughed at a couple of jokes, but I generally found it unpleasant and mostly unfunny. Jonah Hex has mostly the same plot, if not as stupidly outlandish, and while that film rather cowardly avoids the fact that the villains are ex-Confederates, this one at least puts a spotlight on it. I just really did not like this.

Erin Brockovich - I know I've watched this before, but I was probably a whiny little shit teen, and literally all I remembered was the trailer.  Razor sharp screenplay that deftly balances being a single mom rom-dram and a smart, fast-paced legal thriller that is edited together masterfully.  Julia is at the absolute pinnacle of her powers here.  On fire in every scene, and the movie is smart enough to know that her brassy nature doesn't always get her way, which sometimes makes her feel like a bully.

Inglourious Basterds - Still feels like a series of great, but unrelated, vignettes, and a couple of performances that don't quite work for me.

The Thursday Murder Club - Delightful and cozy murder mystery. Doesn't really do anything special, but it doesn't need to. Did find it a little hard care about the retirement home's potential closure because these people obviously have enough money to live comfortably anywhere.

Caught Stealing - I think this might be first time I actually enjoyed myself while watching an Aronofsky film? Basically just an airport thriller with an incredibly talented filmmaker behind it, which I don't think I realized until the last 5-10 minutes.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale - It's more Downton!  For all the good and bad that comes with.  It looks incredible, has great performances, occasionally feels a little tone deaf with how much it wants you to sympathize with these obscenely rich people, and makes Molesly suffer.  You know, Downton!  The very end felt like it was trying to hard too make you feel really sad it's over, which felt lame because it had been doing such a good job doing naturally before then.  Maybe I should start The Gilded Age?

[Cartagia]

Transformers - The stuff I like about this movie I really, really like. The CGI still looks great, the action is pure unadulterated Bayhem (if he ever tops that Blackout opening sequence in this franchise I'll be shocked). If this were just the alien Invasion action thriller stuff, or even just cut back on the "boy & his car" stuff like 60-75% I would probably love this. Held up better than I expected, but it's not like I ever hated this one.

[kamikazekeeg]

Last Breath - Always a got a thing for an underwater movie, so this one is a diving incident with a pipeline repair crew, true story situation, bad weather leading to a diver getting left on the sea bottom and then it's about trying to save him as he runs out of air.  Decent enough story.  Nothing super stand out, but being that it's a true story situation that doesn't have anything big and flashy going on, it does what it needs to with a couple recognizable actors and solid performances.

[Cartagia]

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - Just terrible. I mean, really terrible, and yet it is still way better than I remembered.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Megan Fox is legitimately missed, and Rose Huntington-Whiteley does not even come close to filling her shoes.  The action is an unabashed spectacle but is missing any real emotional resonance with the story.  Also has the same problem of the last film, treating any unnamed Transformers as generic robots that can do whatever the plot calls for at that moment.

Transformers: Age of Extinction - Something I appreciate about these movies is that they didn't forget they need to be car movies in addition to being about big robots... until halfway through this nearly three hour movie.  I actually was super into this for the first hour or so, but man, it just keeps going and going.  Then it pretty much drops the ball with the Dinobots.

Transformers: The Last Knight - The only one of Bay's entries that could reasonably be considered an actual kids movie, while also being the least Transformers-esque.  I appreciate the attempt at a lighter tone, but that's completely opposed to how utterly grim the stakes are.  Mark Whalberg parries a sword swung by a giant robot.  Anthony Hopkins is having a ball.

Bumblebee - The best of these movies by a large margin, but it still has a few of the same issues as the previous five - namely tonal balance.  Are the Transformers intergalactic murder machines or toddlers?

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts - Better than any of the Bay films, but not quite as good as Bumblebee. An all-timer 'You're never gonna believe this!' ending.

The Harder They Fall - Absolutely stacked cast and packed with style, but the second act really drags.  Doesn't help that the villains are far more interesting than the heroes, either.  Has that Netflix sheen where, despite the fact they obviously spent a fair amount of money on it, it still feels cheap.

[Cartagia]

Friendship - I didn't dislike this or anything, and even though I knew the general premise going in I wasn't really locked in to its overall message and vibe until the finale.  It's got funny moments, but honestly didn't get as crazy as I expected based on the pedigree, and the moments I laughed the most were all smaller moments.  Good performances all around, and excellent music choices.

[kamikazekeeg]

Minecraft - Gonna be honest...I made it to Lava Chicken, which is around 40 minutes in and stopped lol I didn't expect it to be good and I'm usually all for a silly comedy, but the whole thing feels like a bad parody.  I'm also kind of a Jack Black apologist, I like him in most anything, but this is just cartoonish levels of Jack Black done in the wrong way.  It's all playing directly to the camera and it just feels off to me.  I've watched all the way through far worse movies, and it's not specifically bad, to me it's just not working.  Maybe I'll go back, I don't know.

Sully - For a more serious and better movie, got around to watching this.  I'd actually seen clips for awhile, bad habit of watching clips for movies on there sometimes, not many, but for some reason, a few would pop up for this one about the flight tests at the hearing, so I'd seen all that, but the movie is a decent biographical drama, nothing flashy, nothing over the top, I appreciate that they didn't hype up the actual crash with big music or anything and we even get it kinda twice from different viewpoints slightly at a certain point before the crash and it works well for that.  I didn't even know this was a Clint Eastwood film, and I think he can understand when a movie needs to be as grounded as can be.

As usual for a biographical drama, I like to look up the wiki, see what people thought, how accurate it was, and it sounds like they did a decent job.  There was maybe abit too much to make out the Safety Board investigation as being more out to find Sully as being in the wrong, which I can sorta see in the film slightly, but didn't think it was too aggressive, and that's about it, otherwise it's apparently on point, so good to know.

[Cartagia]

The Long Walk - Felt kinda flat on a technical level, and I don't think it really hit the right notes in the ending, but it's another solid dystopian contest from Francis Lawrence.  Excellent cast generally does a great job selling loads of expositional dialogue.

RoboCop - The only thing that has aged about the film is that some the satire doesn't seem so far fetched today.  ED-209 is maybe the greatest stop motion creature ever made. While often called an action movie, there's actually very little action, with great editing and an amazing soundtrack giving the illusion of action.

Batman - The only other movie that feels like this is Batman Returns, and even then, some of the more noir-ish aspects are missing.  80s and 90s Burton was untouchable.

[marvelvscapcom2]

Minecraft - Gonna be honest...I made it to Lava Chicken, which is around 40 minutes in and stopped lol I didn't expect it to be good and I'm usually all for a silly comedy, but the whole thing feels like a bad parody.  I'm also kind of a Jack Black apologist, I like him in most anything, but this is just cartoonish levels of Jack Black done in the wrong way.  It's all playing directly to the camera and it just feels off to me.  I've watched all the way through far worse movies, and it's not specifically bad, to me it's just not working.  Maybe I'll go back, I don't know.

Sully - For a more serious and better movie, got around to watching this.  I'd actually seen clips for awhile, bad habit of watching clips for movies on there sometimes, not many, but for some reason, a few would pop up for this one about the flight tests at the hearing, so I'd seen all that, but the movie is a decent biographical drama, nothing flashy, nothing over the top, I appreciate that they didn't hype up the actual crash with big music or anything and we even get it kinda twice from different viewpoints slightly at a certain point before the crash and it works well for that.  I didn't even know this was a Clint Eastwood film, and I think he can understand when a movie needs to be as grounded as can be.

As usual for a biographical drama, I like to look up the wiki, see what people thought, how accurate it was, and it sounds like they did a decent job.  There was maybe abit too much to make out the Safety Board investigation as being more out to find Sully as being in the wrong, which I can sorta see in the film slightly, but didn't think it was too aggressive, and that's about it, otherwise it's apparently on point, so good to know.

I agree heavily about Minecraft movie. Jack seemed like he was cosplaying more than acting a role. Like his kids made him dress up as Steve and then he basically just recycled his school of rock energy to try to wing it.  Bowser Barely worked but Steve? Jack Black cant be every game character to ever exist. Hes too recognizable to keep recycling. But i'd actually take it further by saying Minecraft as a whole is such a shitty game to adapt to a movie. Its a beautiful excellent game but its not a movie style game. It's a cathartic game with very vague plot.  I feel it was made as a IP cash grab. The fact it isn't unwatchable is my only shock of it.

[marvelvscapcom2]

Taxi Driver [1976]

Quite the controversial movie for it's time. Robert Deniro.. I mean what can be said that he hasn't already etched into our brains with 30 other great films but boy oh boy does he enter a niche and disgustingly offputting bag here.  The ending is most shocking to me because it sorta tugs at the internal duality of man aspect of humans like a dog tugs a rope.  This movie is actually a fairly decent representation of skitzophrenia disorders and the dangers of politic obsession. And not to get political. Many of the actions in this movie have recently played out and have many times in history.  Jodie Foster was an infant in this movie being only 12 yrs old. Very young yet absolutely crushed and obliterated her role.  Child stars back then were simply on another level of talent. And expected to do much more challenging plots.  The movie paces itself well and leaves the viewer longing for conclusions that never come. That is intentional.  The 4k remaster I watched was pretty.  Neons drip on black roads, new york glows, the 70s shine through.  Feels like a time portal. 

Robert in general is great at playing the wacko, the polished corrleone and many things in between but seeing him buff, young and mohawked is something that every human should do ince lol. 

95/100

[kamikazekeeg]

Superman (2025) - Loved the movie, it's just a whole lot of fun, it's vibrant, it's funny, it embraces some of the more silly side of the comics, it has me very hopeful for the future of the DC movies.  I was kinda surprised we got so little Clark Kent/Daily Planet stuff, but it makes sense, we've gotten so much of that with past movies/shows, so Gunn just embraced everything being more setup for Superman and jumped right into the action of it all.  I thought I might've been spoiled on a good amount of the movie just through casual internet awareness, but there were a few surprises, along with general execution of the film not being quite what I thought.

It's great to be excited for comic book movies after being rather middling with a lot of Marvel stuff these days, though I'm also planning to watch the new Fantastic Four movie later which I'm expecting to like.

[Cartagia]

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - Underseen by general audiences, considering the overall quality.  It's great!  Such a fitting send off for the TOS crew right when TNG was hitting its stride.

Pulp Fiction - The first time I really noticed just how good Travolta is in this.  It's no wonder it revitalized his career.  What an absolute bombshell on the industry this must have felt like in the 90s.

Cat Ballou - Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin are great, and I really like the level of energy it has.  Not a big fan of the horny henchman, though.  Kinda undermines Cat as a focus of the film.

One Battle After Another - I don't think it's PTA's best, but it is almost certainly his most important. It's gonna win a bunch of awards, and I'm not gonna disagree on pure technical level, but I didn't fully connect with it on an emotional level. The tone felt just a bit too at odds with itself for me.