What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?

[Cartagia]

eXistenZ - Got a lot of that really gnarly Cronenberg-ian imagery and distortion of reality, but there's way too many plot twists in the back half for the narrative to really hit like it could. A lot of great actors here, but none of them at their best.

Silent Running - Love the chunky 1970s futurism, Bruce Dern, and the overall message. It is a bit heavy-handed, though, and while I like the idea of hippie botanist Dern hanging out with 3 robots on an empty spaceship, I don't think it does quite enough to make it fully engaging during those parts.

[weirdfeline]

GOAT has an absurd amount of product placement. The products aren't even stylized to fit the world. DualSense controllers and a straight up PS5, multiple Mercedes-Benz's with the logo taking up most of the screen, a lot of PLEZi (Steph Curry's verison of PRIME), Under Armour sneakers and clothing, even a Sony Xperia phone shows up. I love it all. Product placement is so fun to me and the movie is pretty good as well. It's a pretty standard story but the animation is nice.

I forgot to watch Fixed from Sony so I guess that's next up.

I watched Fixed. It has a lot of cartoon dog butthole and balls in it. It apparently has hand-drawn animation but it looks more like computer animation trying to look hand-drawn. When I first heard of Fixed I was immediately reminded of the 2006 MTV2 show Where My Dogs At? I enjoyed the show more. Pretty much only thing I liked about Fixed is that it feels like it's from twenty years ago.

[Cartagia]

Sanctified - Punches well above its weight in both score and cinematography for being such a low budget western. Also a prime example of a faith-based film that doesn't have a terrible (and cloying or saccharine) screenplay.

Dr. Strangelove - Ostensibly a first watch, since all I really remembered from a single viewing 25-30 years ago is Pickens on the bomb and "You can't fight in here! This is the war room!" (Which, to be fair, is one of the greatest lines ever written.)

It's almost impossible to tell that Sellers' three characters are the same actor, but it's George C. Scott that steals the show for me. "He'll see the big board!" is an all-time line reading.

Ripper's rants also sound an awful lot like RFK, Jr. these days.

Tropic Thunder - First revisit since theaters. My opinion is largely unchanged. Lots of people could have played Ben Stiller's role, but only Ben Stiller could have written and directed it. Terrific high-concept comedy with some brilliant performances, but it plays the really over the top stuff just a couple too many times. It's almost on a schedule. Every 15 minutes something so stupid happens it should stop the movie dead, but they've been keeping thing just silly enough so it doesn't feel that out of place.

The Dam Busters - Not exactly a thrilling film, but it is an interesting and engaging one. Similar to Oppenheimer if that movie were only about the development of the bomb. A solid pen and paper thriller until it becomes a sturdy airforce flick.

Obsession - YouTuber to feature horror filmmaker pipeline remains strong. I've been a fan of Curry Barker's comedy skits for a few years at this point, but only recently started to delve into his horror work, and this guy has what it takes. Powerhouse performance from Inde Navarrette that will worm its way under your skin and stay there for days.

Superbad - Holds up! The outdated language gets a pass because of the accuracy, and the movie makes it a point of the climax that their plan is ill-advised, shitty, and, most importantly, doesn't work.

Raymond & Ray - I bet this really cooks as a stage play. As a movie it is kind of flat and not particularly interesting, but the performances are solid across the board.

Unforgiven - It's got several great monologues, but most of the dialogue is a lot more stilted than I remembered. And honestly, so is Clint's performance until the 'Hell of a thing' speech. Probably no coincidence that is also when it turns into one of the most satisfying 15-20 minutes of cinema ever created.

Masters of the Universe - It's a total mess, but it is an extremely charming mess. Obviously wants to be taken seriously, but that hackneyed attempted at earnestness makes the tone so much more inline with the original cartoon than it was meant to be. And if you know just how much of a disaster things were during production it makes the end result feel just that much more impressive. Langella is having a blast and outacting everyone else but Meg Foster by like 10x over.

Saturday Night - Even though it is bit too self-serious about the importance of SNL and far too lionizing of Lorne, I still had a good time with this.

China O'Brien - A poor Americanized attempt to recreate Rothrock's Hong Kong output.

Red Rocket - Mikey Saber is an all-time cinema scumbag. Simon Rex is made of pure lightning.

The Witches - It's a shame that the child performances in this are not great, because otherwise this is one of the greatest mixes of little kid adventure story and genuine scares ever made. You can tell that several sequences had to be pared back from what was shot, which is a shame cause it makes the editing feel a little choppy in places.

[Cartagia]

The Naked Spur - What makes Mann's Westerns so good is that there is so much more going on than a simple white hat vs. black hat romp. Just like The Far Country Jimmy Stewart is playing a bit against type, a surly cowboy out for his own interests who tries not to care about anyone else. Not quite as gritty as the Ranown Westerns, but not squeaky clean, either.

The Flintstones - They'd shoot you in street if you tried to make a movie this way today. Actually building everything? From scratch? Go to hell.

It's a great cast and an incredibly impressive production, but the script is abysmal. Just total garbage.

Parker - Had a good time with this. Deep cast, fun heist and revenge plot. Lots of fun violence. Makes me wanna go back and drop my Play Dirty rating. This is a much better Westlake adaptation.

Backrooms - Finally, a movie that dares to ask, "What if everything was empty, kinda weird, and creepy?"

Found myself genuinely unsettled during several sequences. I think it gets a little up it's own ass in the climax but still manages to mostly stick the landing.

Challenge of the Masters - Didn't really hit for me, but maybe my expectations weren't in the right place? A couple of fun fights, but this doesn't really play to the Shaw Bros strengths of violence and exploitation.

Straight to Hell - If this weren't made by a director that I knew was capable of making a good movie it'd get a pass, but it was, and I can't believe that a professional (and award winning) filmmaker made something this bad. Two stars because of Dennis Hopper and there were 4 or 5 scenes or ideas that I thought were genuinely hilarious. Nearly everything else was atrocious.

The Florida Project - Another Sean Baker home run. Brooklynn Prince should have been nominated for an Oscar. She'd be on the Mount Rushmore of child performances.

Elio - Totally fine. Looks amazing, cool creature designs, mostly predictable. Lower tier Pixar is still worth a watch.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu - Pretty much bereft of passion and substance. Say what you will about the prequels, but at least they make me feel something. Would have been far better served as an actual new season of the show. Ludwig Göransson MVP.

The Lost Bus - Intense, emotional, looks incredible. It's let down by a rather ho-hum script, unfortunately.

The Punisher: One Last Kill - I think Bernthal just absolutely crushes it as Frank. I could watch a new one of these every year.

They Will Kill You - Loved the big weirdo energy on here. Kooky, kinetic, strange, gory, campy. A ton of fun.

Discolsure Day - I think West Side Story is just a hair better, but this might be my favorite Spielberg flick since Catch Me if You Can. Killer setpieces, fun characters, great (final?) score from John Williams.

It is a little too long and some story beats get repetitive, but I'm willing to over look those things for Senõr Spielbergo.

The Gunfighter - Maybe the first revisionist Western? Terrific world-weary performance from Gregory Peck. From the first scene you understand he's done being the famous Johnny Ringo, and it is completely clear why. There's always someone younger and hungrier, but they just don't realize that their hunger can't be sated.

Executioners from Shaolin - Several great fights in this. Especially the opening 10 or so minutes. Gets a bit repetitive in the middle and not all the humor lands, but I had a good time with it.

The Family Plan 2 - The overall plot is better than the first, and Kit Harrington is a fun villain. However, the action sequences much fewer and farther between, while being worse overall, and they were the highlights of the first.

Ocaen's Eleven - It's been a minute, but this still so much freaking fun. Just a total blast from start to finish.

[kamikazekeeg]

War Machine - Needed something random to watch, so figured I'd give this a go. It's pretty decent action schlock, lots of cheesy writing, but it's all the right kind, with soldiers dealing with a threat they can't overcome starring the dude from Reacher.  I liked the robot in this, it's very Metal Gear Rex inspired to me, which stands out I think from a lot of alien threats you tend to see in movies.  I can tell whoever did the score really wanted to sneak in some Predator, because the score before they meet the robot I swear is basically just the Predator theme lol Overall solid.