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

[Alberto_Magnifico]

Nosferatu (2024)
I really liked it, hard to fault but it didn't capture me like Eggers other films.
3/5

 

[Gralin]

Asteriod City
Not bad

Can see why it's pretty much his lowest rated film

Just missing something

 

[spinynorman]

Last year was notorious for movie flops, but has anyone else found no appeal with any mainstream movies released in December 2024 and January 2025? Normally some blockbuster movies are released this time of year, but not this summer and none of the recent films in any genre look interesting or worth seeing. They look like streaming release movies.

Do we really need yet another biopic about Bob Dylan? Another musical biopic about an English singer/musician who for reasons nobody seems able to explain is portrayed by a CGI chimpanzee? A depressing melodrama about a young wife/mother who is dying of cancer but the scenes in the movie are out of sequence? A werewolf movie that looks from trailer alone flat out boring? Or a crime-action film that again looks like a Netflix movie?

At least with most of the movies last year they looked to have some appeal to their audiences before it became apparent they were no good (e.g. Madam Web, Argyle, Borderlands) or were perfectly good movies that simply failed to find an audience (The Fall Guy, Fly Me to the Moon). But this year so far ...

The prestige films this year do seem a bit less exciting. I don't see many Killers of the Flower Moon, Oppenheimer, The Zone of Interest, Anatomy of a Fall or The Holdovers of this lot of nominees. Of the five I've seen for this year, I'd only put Anora and maybe Dune 2 on that level, and of those I've not seen, only The Brutalist and Nickel Boys seem likely to match that. That's all subjective, but I do think we're now seeing the knock-on effects of the Hollywood strikes from a couple of years ago.

 

[Gralin]

Finally saw Enemy by Villeneuve

 

[Chief]

Complete Unknown - I liked it. A bit melodramatic in places where it could have had more impact but worth the ticket price.

 

[phantom13]

Den of Thieves (2018)

It's a heist movie in the style of Heat. Pablo Schreiber leads a gang of ex-special forces to rob a Federal Reserve building. O'Shea Jackson is the driver. Gerrard Butler plays Big Nick who is in charge of an outlaw LA Sheriff's team.

The plot moves along nicely with only a couple of nonsense moments like

Spoiler

why did the security guards risk their lives for an empty truck? The fake robbery of the small bank was pointless.

It doesn't quite have the star quality of Pacino and De Niro but the action scenes are just as good as Heat.

7/10

Spoiler

The fake bank robbery was supposed to keep all the cops and FBI guys at bay watching the fake robbery while they executed the real one. Big Nick breaks rank because he sniffs it out

There is nothing in Den Of Thieves that comes even remotely close to the bank robbery shootout in Heat.

Really nothing comes close to that scene in any film, but the highway shootout in this is pretty ****ing good.

What did you make of it? Austin seems to still be playing Elvis in everything I see him in and it's a bit distracting.

I quite liked Bikeriders, Its a rambling story telling device that sort of meanders through its beats but its a good hang.

Butler is a little Elvisy TBH. He dropped it for Dune but its still around a bit in this.

 

[phantom13]

Bad Boys - Ride or Die

Theyve surely squeezed every last drop outofthis "franchise" the first is an action/comedy classic. The second jumps the shark but its still a mostly fun ride, the third (yes there is a third) was terrible on all fronts. This one lacks any of that fun. Martin Lawrence is old, bloated and disastrously unfunny. Will Smith is old and too self serious. There is a suprisingly well known support cast and the final shootout does some cool stuff and it killed some time while i spun the legs on an exercise bike but otherwise avoid it.

 

[The Terrible Thinker]

Gladiator II

Something like this happened half way through the film.

 

[phantom13]

Gladiator II

Something like this happened half way through the film.

They really half assed that scene too. It didnt lean into its absurdity to have some fun, it just went "heres the Colosseum with water and sharks and now youll get 3 mnutes of a dull boat race".

 

[dont bowl there]

Trap

Had high hopes going in...this quickly evaporated. Thought Hartnett was really good for a role that didn't give him much to work with but the script and some of the other acting (Nepo baby) was horrendous. Hartnett saved the movie from being a total flop IMO but would still have it around 4/10.

 

[JackOutback]

I quite liked Bikeriders, Its a rambling story telling device that sort of meanders through its beats but its a good hang.

Butler is a little Elvisy TBH. He dropped it for Dune but its still around a bit in this.

I like The Bikeriders too, saw it in cinemas. Not reinventing the wheel but an interesting watch nonetheless.

 

[Cruyff14]

Bad Boys - Ride or Die

Theyve surely squeezed every last drop outofthis "franchise" the first is an action/comedy classic. The second jumps the shark but its still a mostly fun ride, the third (yes there is a third) was terrible on all fronts. This one lacks any of that fun. Martin Lawrence is old, bloated and disastrously unfunny. Will Smith is old and too self serious. There is a suprisingly well known support cast and the final shootout does some cool stuff and it killed some time while i spun the legs on an exercise bike but otherwise avoid it.

I didn't mind it for brainless, action fun.

 

[Frank Bunn]

Nosferatu (2024)
I really liked it, hard to fault but it didn't capture me like Eggers other films.
3/5

I started watching it. It seemed to be a re-shoot of the 2023 movie.

 

[Alberto_Magnifico]

Trap

Had high hopes going in...this quickly evaporated. Thought Hartnett was really good for a role that didn't give him much to work with but the script and some of the other acting (Nepo baby) was horrendous. Hartnett saved the movie from being a total flop IMO but would still have it around 4/10.

Exactly how I felt.
Then I found out that Lady Raven is Shylamans musician daughter and I disliked it even more

 

[spinynorman]

Wolf Man - in the midst of all the pretentious Oscar contenders, this looked like a potential nice respite from the self-seriousness. It was not. A man returns to his childhood home in the woods of the Pacific Northwest with his wife and child, where they are terrorised by a (you'll never guess it) wolf man. It starts okay but after the first act I found this really ground to a halt, with an inevitable ending and a lack of tension in most of how it got there. Attempts at a Cronenbergian body horror failed to shock as this film was so darkly lit you couldn't really get the full effect of the grossness. Pretty dull!

Emilia Pérez - it's gotten the most Oscar nominations this year and a terrible audience backlash. I get the issues and the comparisons to the liberal clunkiness of other Oscar favourites Crash and Green Book, but this was daring enough for me to like well enough. I don't think it should be taken as any great insight into cartels, Mexico or the trans experience, and I do think some of its narrative decisions are doubtlessly questionable, but I enjoyed the novelty of its musical numbers and its heightened melodrama. I dunno, it didn't rock my world but, similar to Conclave, I had a good time with it.