Movie What's the last movie you saw? (7)

[JackOutback]

Blue Beetle… gave this a go because I saw it had some generous reviews. Turns out they were very generous. It starts out like a bad midday movie mixed with a 90s family sitcom before settling into a proper kids movie despite being rated M. The humour is lazy and repetitive, to the point they undermine the hero’s ethical stance for a cheap laugh. There’s a bit of energy during a mid-movie fight where he’s learning how to use his suit, the lead actor does well, but the finale is pretty flat and it’s pretty average overall. 5/10 if I’m being a little generous, maybe 4.

 

[bok_party]

Blue Beetle… gave this a go because I saw it had some generous reviews. Turns out they were very generous. It starts out like a bad midday movie mixed with a 90s family sitcom before settling into a proper kids movie despite being rated M. The humour is lazy and repetitive, to the point they undermine the hero’s ethical stance for a cheap laugh. There’s a bit of energy during a mid-movie fight where he’s learning how to use his suit, the lead actor does well, but the finale is pretty flat and it’s pretty average overall. 5/10 if I’m being a little generous, maybe 4.

Watched it on the plane because of the reviews. I felt the same as you. It was incredibly run of the mill superhero film just with a Hispanic slant.

 

[MrsEddieBetts]

Despicable Me 4

Another movie day, this time with just my youngest son. He loved the bits with the minions, was a bit scared by some of the other scenes (but he was having a bit of a sooky day). Could have done without the woman sitting behind me saying AWWWWWW CUTE every time the minions came on screen. Some funny moments. 6/10.

 

[spinynorman]

Caught five films at an Ousmane Sembène retrospective. Sembène is considered the "father of African film" (a title he hated). He didn't actually begin making films until he was in his 40s (in the 1960s), having fought for the Free French in World War Two and worked in the dockyards of Marseille after the war, becoming an active unionist and member of the Communist Party. When he returned to Senegal and began writing books and making films, he took his radical post-colonial approach to his films.

1966's Black Girl is the first I watched, a taut hour-long film about a young Senegalese woman who moves from Dakar to the French Riviera to work for a liberal white French couple. It's a movie that could be a bit too miserable if it lasted beyond that length, but as is is extremely effective and a masterpiece and one of the greatest African films. 1968's Mandabi is considered the first feature length film in an African language, and shows a pompous blowhard receiving a money order from his nephew in Paris but unable to cash it because of the bureaucracy. Quite a funny film, that again takes something that could be a miserable chore but makes it work by making its protagonist so unlikeable.

1975's Xala is a satire of post-colonial Senegalese government, featuring a wealthy businessman who marries his third wife (he is still with his other two) only to suffer from erectile dysfunction. This was very funny, and had some great memorable scenes (particularly its horrific ending). 1977's Ceddo is set in the 19th century, about a tribe whose king has imposed Islam, so villagers kidnap his daughter the princess and hold her hostage to compel him to return to traditionality. Court figures, many of whom are courtesans of the princess, set out on doomed missions to win her back, and with each failure the influence of the imam grows. It's an interesting film and kind of epic in scale, but quite shaggy (particularly in comparison to Black Girl) and was probably my least favourite of what I saw.

Lastly, 2004's Moolaadé, his final film, was a rallying cry against genital mutilation, and is about a woman who takes in four girls who've fled the procedure and stands up to those who support it in the village. It sounds incredibly heavy-going, but is a real crowdpleaser that I thought was as upbeat as any movie I can imagine about female genital mutilation could be!

Really interesting filmmaker and a wonderful retrospective. He's a director well worth exploring.

 

[Frank Bunn]

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)

Excellent set design and CGI. Good plot and action. It had a bit of Mad Max post-apocalypse about it.

The ape characters were too much like humans, whether chimp, gorilla or orangutan. It wasn't clear what country or continent they were in. They all spoke English. All the humans were white. There were zebras which suggests Africa but they could have escaped from a zoo.

But well worth a look and they have set it up for sequels.

6/10

 

[Coolangatta]

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)

Excellent set design and CGI. Good plot and action. It had a bit of Mad Max post-apocalypse about it.

The ape characters were too much like humans, whether chimp, gorilla or orangutan. It wasn't clear what country or continent they were in. They all spoke English. All the humans were white. There were zebras which suggests Africa but they could have escaped from a zoo.

But well worth a look and they have set it up for sequels.

6/10

I liked it. Better than most big budget cinema drawcards going around the last five years. An 8 for me. Not as good as War or Rise, though.

 

[HirdyLannister]

The three movies of planet of the apes with Caesar is one of the most underrated movie trilogy

 

[Cruyff14]

The Hit Man

I really enjoyed it. It's unique, fun, silly, doesn't take itself seriously, and the two leads are great. 4/5

Talladega Nights

It was very silly. We nearly turned it off because we didn't care for it that much, but it was OK. I don't see why people rave about it to be honest.

 

[Mayestro]

The End We Start From- a solid drama about an environmental disaster in England and trying to survive it. Explores some themes of grief and loss. Jodie Comer is always good as is Katherine Waterson, and Joel Fry in the first thing I’ve seen him in since game of thrones. 7.5/10.

 

[Frank Bunn]

CODA (2021)

A hearing able girl in a deaf, trawler fishing family, wants to be a singer.

You could almost guess the plot from that logline but you can easily overlook the predictability because of how well it is put together. It does a great job of intertwining the issues of deaf disability, with a downtrodden fishing community, and someone who wants to escape their family and small town expectations.

It's very heart warming. There's some moving moments when the lead character sings.

7/10

 

[Mayestro]

Mr Nobody -2009 - this didn’t really work for me. I can respect a movie that is bold and completely different, but they didn’t quite pull it off. A science fiction/fantasy/romance about a person in the future who is the oldest person alive who remembers multiple different lives based on choices he made when he was younger. A cross between Sliding Doors and Cloud Atlas. 5/10. Also looking online I’m glad I wasn’t the only person to feel Jared Leto recycled his laugh from this into the Suicide Squad.

 

[Jarman3]

Inside Out 2

This one was OK without being great. So it doesn't fare well by comparison to the first Inside Out which I do regard as great - probably the last great movie Pixar made. But judged on its own merits it was a decent enough movie, certainly better than most of Pixar's efforts over the past few years which have really gone off the boil IMO.

Judged in isolation it's good, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was just watching a watered down version of the first one. That onedid some great work in establishing the inner workings of the mind and how it worked with the emotions, memories, etc, but this one didn't really add anything to that. It felt like it was just riding along on the back of that one, chucking in a new story and some new emotions into the existing framework.

 

[JackOutback]

Inside Out 2

This one was OK without being great. So it doesn't fare well by comparison to the first Inside Out which I do regard as great - probably the last great movie Pixar made. But judged on its own merits it was a decent enough movie, certainly better than most of Pixar's efforts over the past few years which have really gone off the boil IMO.

Judged in isolation it's good, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was just watching a watered down version of the first one. That onedid some great work in establishing the inner workings of the mind and how it worked with the emotions, memories, etc, but this one didn't really add anything to that. It felt like it was just riding along on the back of that one, chucking in a new story and some new emotions into the existing framework.

Soul is great, it just got shunted to Disney Plus during the pandemic and ignored by a lot of people.

 

[dumb]

the orphanage. not bad, not great either. ending equal parts tragic, uplifting and trite. beautifully shot, particularly liked the doorknob sequence. a couple of spooky moments, some predictable especially the sceptic/believer dichotomy.
'a mother's torment' and maybe wondering whether or not she's going mad does the heavy lifting for the story rather than spooky things, which was sort of interesting to me more than the movie's reality.
didn't pick up my phone mid-movie so can't complain too much.

 

[Frank Bunn]

La Dolce Vita (1960)

Directed and co-written by Federico Fellini. It follows a tabloid journalist who attends a series of parties and has affairs with several women without finding any satisfaction or meaning in his life. It's beautifully shot in black and white and some of the sets are amazing. There's some great scenes, such as the madness that ensues when two children claim to have seen the Madonna. But other scenes fell flat for me. The hedonism and intellectualism of 1960 socialite Rome hasn't aged well. And as a whole it felt like a collection of interesting scenes that were sometimes disconnected from each other. At the end of the three hours I don't think it's clear what message Fellini is conveying.

7/10

 

[NSWCROW]

FURIOSA
There always was, is, and will be War

The Sumerian fought the Elamite
The Saxon fought the Viking
And so the histories grew

There were the Wars of the Roses, the Oranges
The Opium Wars
The One-Day, Six-Day, Thousand-Day Wars

North against South
East against West

The First, Second, Third.
Countless wars of Religion and righteous belief

The Oil Wars, Water Wars
The Tri-Nation Nuclear War

The battle of the Boomtowns
And now, my dears....

The Forty-Day Wasteland War

 

[dumb]

little evil, 2017

the omen but with a few comedic stylings. clancy brown plays a religious clancy brown. bridget everitt as a melissa mccarthy proxy was both a highlight and lowlight.
didn't claw my eyes out but too cute for me. meh.

 

[Xtreme]

Recently watched a few movies that I don't think I've posted a great deal about over my time on Bigfooty (in fairness I might have posted about watching some of them previously.... but I don't think it's been done in recent years. I'd love to say 10, but I'm probably wrong lol.

The Goonies

Feels like it's been forever since I've watched it. Which is funny because the pop culture references (well I throw Sloth into some of my real life "banter" from time to time) still exist. Cast have good chemistry, it's overall just a good film from start to finish. Wish there was a sequel to it, but alas they probably tried scripting so many scenarios over the years but couldn't recapture the same magic ?

4/5

Training Day

As good as this film is, I still think old mate Rusty was robbed of the Oscar (of course the idiot had to get bad publicity for throwing a phone at the hotel guy hahaha). An enjoyable film that I haven't watched in a really long time. Recently upgraded to the 4K version and it's a stellar presentation. Denzel doing Denzel things!

4/5


Masters of the Universe (87 live action)

Haven't seen this in donkeys years, think in part because with all of the ridicule it gets... I didn't want to ruin my memories of it when I was little. Yes the script is a bit off kilter - (kinda tries to be like a grounded Star Wars ? lol). But I actually enjoyed it, save for some very shonky special effects part way through. It looks really good on bluray.

3.5/5

 

[Cruyff14]

Dark Waters (Stan)

Mark Ruffalo is so damn good. A corporate defense attorney takes on an environmental lawsuit against a chemical company that exposes a lengthy history of pollution.

It sounds boring but it's pretty damning, scary and shocking. Worth a watch.

Essentially a chemical they (Dupont) use in their Teflon pans was poisoning people. They didn't care because they were making $1b a profit a year from the product.

 

[GreyCrow]

Dark Waters (Stan)

Mark Ruffalo is so damn good. A corporate defense attorney takes on an environmental lawsuit against a chemical company that exposes a lengthy history of pollution.

It sounds boring but it's pretty damning, scary and shocking. Worth a watch.

Essentially a chemical they (Dupont) use in their Teflon pans was poisoning people. They didn't care because they were making $1b a profit a year from the product.

Off topic but that was part of VWs strategy - the money they made would have offset any fine ( at the time) and media strategies that they couldnt stop

 

[JackOutback]

A Quiet Place: Day One… tight, effective horror/thriller. Transfers the action from small town/rural America to New York, which gives it a point of difference. And as a prequel showing the arrival of the aliens that attack by sound, we know there’s no chance of ‘taking down’ the invaders, which it allows it to have bigger set pieces but smaller stakes for the main characters.

Lupito Nyong’o is interesting as the main character who is facing her own mortality before the aliens arrive, Joseph Quinn is good and there’s small connections to the other films that don’t feel forced.

Fun and a little unpredictable, albeit not offering anything new. 7/10

 

[Mayestro]

Robot dreams. A pleasant but slightly insubstantial dialogue free animated movie about a lonely dog’s friendship with a robot. It was sweet but I’m not sure I would recommend it to anyone. Odd amount of product placement for animation. It’s not a great endorsement when it barely breaks even on the entertainment value versus time invested ratio. 5/10.

 

[JackOutback]

Dracula: Voyage of the Demeter… I wanted to like this, a throwback Dracula movie set on a wooden sailing ship in the late 1800s. But it doesn’t capitalise on what should be a claustrophobic atmosphere and sense of dread being hunted one by one. I blame the director for a mix of hoary filming and framing techniques, cliched jump scares and odd pacing. The actors are generally pretty good, including Corey Hawkins and David Dalmastican. Not unwatchable but could have been better in more assured hands. 5/10

 

[Gralin]

Dracula: Voyage of the Demeter… I wanted to like this, a throwback Dracula movie set on a wooden sailing ship in the late 1800s. But it doesn’t capitalise on what should be a claustrophobic atmosphere and sense of dread being hunted one by one. I blame the director for a mix of hoary filming and framing techniques, cliched jump scares and odd pacing. The actors are generally pretty good, including Corey Hawkins and David Dalmastican. Not unwatchable but could have been better in more assured hands. 5/10

The idea is great but I've not heard a single person say it was well done

Such a shame

 

[Warsaw]

Kinds of Kindness - Don't gravitate towards anthology films, regardless of who's making them. Yorgos tries his hand at one here, with the same cast of Plemons, Stone, Dafoe and others playing different characters in each of the 3 stories. Very loosely connected, but all share the same ideas around submission and humiliation. It's a somewhat return to Yorgos' earlier Greek films like Dogtooth (which is still my favourite of his and I might have also said about Poor Things) but far less successful. Diminishing returns the longer it went on - but Jesse Plemons is fantastic. 6/10