Rate The Last Movie You Watched - April V3 - no tv shows - General

Decided to watch Drive today and man, that was a great movie.

Didn't feel like seeing another average film at the cinema so instead I saw Pulp Fiction in the cinema yesterday as part of its 20th anniversary, somehow its even more enjoyable watching it with an audience. I think we were all in hysterics when [sp]Marvin got shot in the face[/sp]. It was a great night even if I did only get six hours sleep as a result.

thing about Pulp Fiction, even though I've seen it a dozen times over the years, it's only recently you realise some intricate things about the film, especially in the Bruce Willis story.. Even though it's very subtle, his story is actually a symbolic depiction of [sp]what his dad went through in the war[/sp], and even the sound effects buried in the mix and sequences he goes through portray that. Definitely hidden meanings all over the place in that film even though what's going on is fairly straight forward.

I wish my theater was doing another showing of Pulp Fiction. I missed it two years ago, but I was still able to catch Reservoir Dogs.

So my brother and me decided to marathon the Pokemon movies of our childhood, just for sweet nostalgia. The first movie was always our favorite. It's no masterwork and it's (hypocritically) preachy, but we still enjoyed it. Surprisingly atmospheric for a Pokemon movie, to damn it with faint praise. There was nothing remotely redeemable about the second movie. The third's quality was somewhere between the first and second's.

[I]Cloverfield[/I] was the first movie to make me unable to focus on anything happening on-screen.

[QUOTE=A B.A. Survivor;44869508][I]Cloverfield[/I] was the first movie to make me unable to focus on anything happening on-screen.[/QUOTE] Even in the cinema I found it totally fine.

Octopussy 3/5 Not all that bad. It had some good, tense moments, but ultimately it began to drag by the second act. At least it picked itself back up by the third act.

ok yea Godzilla [B]5/10[/B] this film is a massively mixed bag... Parts are good and parts are really bad. i suppose I will try and run through different elements of the film seperately but who knows how well that will work [B]plot/delivery/ I guess[/B] - really awesome opening credits that set the mood and gave me the idea this director is someone smart and someone who knows about Godzilla (turns out he only kinda knows about him) -the match-cut from the archive image (still during the credits) of Godzilla's spines in the water to an exploding H-Bomb in the same sea was genius and setup to Godzilla being an allegory for the H-bomb. (something they... Totally forget about past this point) -everything before they flash forward 15 years was absolutely fantastic and by far the best part of the film. I loved the exploration and mystery to Ken Watanabe's story, of them discovering the corpse of a MUTO, the eggs etc. Really thought it was cool and different. I loved how true it kept to the concept of Godzilla without ever showing him and technically if you didn't know this was a Godzilla film you'd not know that it was a monster causing what's happening, hinting at his mythical status and nodding the 1954 original, the tense build-up, how they gave little hints and nods that let you know what's going on and you don't (eg the repeated seismic pattern getting bigger was likely footsteps or something) while they don't, Bryan Cranston's acting and him proving that he was not just a name to sell tickets, and the mere fact that Juliette Binoche was his wife made me quite pleased as she is very good and it was nice to see her in a big budget American film where more people can get exposure to her. -The 15 year forward jump made me cringe cos it felt super lazy like it was just "15 YEARS LATER!! AARON TAYLOR JOHNSON!! We are in AMERICA now!" Lame. We see Elizabeth Olsen which is nice cos she's really good and im glad she is getting more attention. But sadly her character fucking sucks and while her acting is good her character is nothing more than the damsel in distress who's gotta stay and look after the kid. (also she's a fucking nurse. Of course. Cringed when I saw her uniform tbh. Lil bit of generic Hollywood sexism there woo) However we also see [I]the fucking son oh my god.[/I] I swear, the kids alone knocked a point off this movie. He was fucking horrific. Some of the WORST child acting I've ever seen (even worse than those other 2, really, really, really shit child actors that appear in the film for no discernible reason and provided zero plot relevance and were shoehorned in as a failed attempt to make us empathise- more on this soon) I HATED every single scene he was in, just because he was in it. He looked fucking stupid as hell as if he didn't have a single coherent thought in his brain (which he evidently didn't as he's written as if he's a lobotomy patient. Maybe he is. Maybe I should be sympathetic. But I dunno, when his mere existence in this film becomes a genuine threat to my ever watching this film again -not exaggerating- I think I am ok with criticising him.) and while he didn't get a whole lot of attention he got more than was necessary and he is a black mark on this film. Fuck that kid. -slight sidetrack... The other kids. They all sucked too. A couple issues with them aside acting. Aaron Taylor Johnson (ATJ from hereon i guess) found that kid yea but like, he lived in Japan for years. he must have been like 10 or something at the time of his mom's death? That means he surely could speak at least basic japanese. Granted he's not needed to for a long time but I'm sure that when it's such a part of your every day life and communication you don't just straight up forget all basic knowledge of it. He could have told the kid everything was alright in Japanese. He knows Japanese. The writers just fucked up here. No excuse for that. I think they just wanted to use no subtitles in the film. Also why did they have to make the family in Hawaii English speaking white people who looked like tourists? Seriously. They could [I]just have easily[/I] shown a Hawaiian family (who are most likely Asian) doing whatever. Did they think that, since it's an American film, the audience can only relate to people from the same race and culture as us? (probably so) Also an irony- they spent all this time trying to cheat empathy out of us using kids, then ATJ blows up the eggs of the MUTO's, which I think is a moral dilemma, but also ironic in that it's the only time I actually felt anything. I felt bad for the MUTO. Didn't give a shit about the dumb ass human kids though lol. -the stuff with Bryan Cranston and ATJ was really cool. Going into the quarantine to find there's no radiation, getting captured, the monster escaping etc. All awesome awesome stuff. But... -... Killing Bryan Cranston was a truly ridiculous and terrible move. He was, and remained to be, the only decent character in the movie. His son should have died instead and then we could have had a cool buddy-cop thing between him and Watanabe and it would also push Cranston even further to being driven mad as he now [I]literally has nothing[/I] (except his grandkid who he never met I guess). either that or you could have a subplot of him trying to rebuild his relationship with his son over the film or something. That'd have given the film an emotional anchor because the film as it is has none. I felt incredibly cheated when he died, and it wasn't some Scream shit where it's a smart bait-and-switch. It's just lame as hell and left us with a generic soldier character with very little depth. But I suppose you gotta have a young, built male as your lead, not some old, 50 year old dude right?? ATJ's acting was mediocre as well. Cranston should have been the lead for the whole film. Would have increased my enjoyment significantly. I liked ATJ as Kick-Ass but he has no presence here and lacks any charm or personality. - the idea of them feeding off radiation was a good device to justify why they left and why they came back up - we were baited to a fight in Hawaii iirc and we didn't get one. I'm not against this concept as it's a basic one for Godzilla movies but it was poorly handled and just left to frustration and more feeling cheated. Godzilla appears and then we see the potential for a fight and we just cut away? Cheap, Gareth Edwards. Cheap. (also when we saw the Tsunami and there was the dog (this might have been in the US and not Hawaii I can't remember) they shoulda killed that fuckin dog. Not so that a dog would die but that'd imply some balls. Shoulda just fuckin crushed it with the waves. Or cut away at least to imply its death. Not have it miraculously run faster than a fucking tsunami) - okay so they wanna kill the 3 monsters with a nuke which is dumb but I mean what else can they do I guess. My issue comes with Watanabe here. He says not to kill Godzilla as he's a peace keeper. how the fuck does he know that? As the film progresses the dude becomes reduced to a walking encyclopedia of shit that has never happened before. I know Godzilla had attacked already, and covered up by an earthquake, (I appreciated this nod to the 1954 film) but not as a peace keeper because there have been no other monsters to prove this. In the original he is awoken by radiation and comes to destroy Tokyo. That ain't savior shit. (I am well aware he is the good guy in most other Godzilla films though, but in this they reference the 1954 film where he is not a hero and use it as justification for him being a hero and ignore any of the other films? Wtf) -Slightly irked the forced the film to take place in a big city in the USA, but they at least made it work with the plot. I at least appreciate that it began in Japan. -I liked that the MUTO made a nest and had all those eggs, but ATJ dealt with it in Michael Bay fashion- blowing it up with gas and no discernible catalyst (unless I'm wrong?). -the final battle was cool but too little too late imo. It was partly awesome but also had a major Transformers vibe about how it was shot, it was visually quite bad and lacked tension. His atomic breath was awesome as fuck though, ngl I was like "oh gotdamn" when his spines started glowing. -how did the female MUTO know it was ATJ that blew up the eggs? How does it make sense for her to know this? How did see even fucking notice him, to be quite honest? How much of a deus ex machina was it for Godzilla to get up from being crushed, make it all the way over and then stop the MUTO the second before ATJ dies? I get pulled out of the film every time that kind of thing happens and no exception here. Just kinda rolled my eyes. Godzilla's atomic blast down the MUTO's throat was badass tho. -ATJ should have died in the blast and his wife should have died from the debris and such. Pissed me off that they survived although there's zero surprise there. -I liked that Godzilla just got up and went back now that his work was done. So Watanabe was right (but he didn't have enough to go off of at the point he declared it...) and it was reasonably true to the original depiction of Godzilla. [B]other shit[/B] -even for a blockbuster this film is [I]vapid as all hell[/I] and even moreso considering it's a Godzilla one that is supposedly keeping close to the original in ideas. It has absolutely zero depth and no message or point or intelligence besides big fights with Godzilla, of which there is only one and it's not particularly great. - TONE. This film takes itself way too seriously. Or more, it fails at being a serious film. Godzilla can be serious, just look at the great 1954 original. But this film suffers from very shallow and weak characters, slow pacing meaning it's boring, and total anti-climax. (I felt no threat or adrenaline during the final battle scenes. I knew everyone was gonna be fine and I knew exactly how it was gonna go but they couldn't even fake danger. I was just sitting there slouched in my chair noticing that IMAX glasses are not very comfortable. It was Man of Steel all over again. Potential for it to be not campy, but kinda fun, however it's not fun. That leads me onto another interesting point... - this isn't really a positive or negative, but an observation. this film is bleak. Nihilistic as hell. I noticed that the human characters literally have no arc and their stories don't really either. There's no satisfaction and no payoff for them. They've got no reason to be in the film other than to bring in a human element. Godzilla does all the work. The humans were pointless. I appreciate that it didn't have one hero saving the day though (well I mean they did and it was Godzilla but you get me). But it was weirdly bleak. That's partly why I wasn't feeling adrenaline in the final fight. I was instead feeling very conflicted and confused as I watched this surrealist piece of existentialism, feeling like I was the only person who realised that's what it was. My friend beside me was fuckin going like "oooh!!!" and fist pumping as Godzilla fought the MUTO. As he tail whipped him into a massive skyscraper. As he got attacked by the two of them. As ATJ blew up the nest (which works as a metaphor of our destructive nature towards earth! NOT a good thing!) I didn't get it. I wasn't cheering. There's nothing to cheer about. I found the fight sad as hell and a losing battle no matter the victor. The film makes a point that humans are nothing. To the Kaiju we are ants. We have no point in this movie and this can be seen as saying we have no point at all. Nature is old and will remain while we are still exposed and could be crushed as easily as nature wants, through the form of these Kaiju. The film is a measure of human arrogance. The film is just disasters one after another, destruction, death, monsters undoing the world we know, and we can do literally nothing to stop it. And unlike most films with this scenario... We [I]actually[/I] can't do anything to stop it. There is no saving grace, no secret weapon, no lucky coincidence. Nothing. The only reason humans kept going was because of Godzilla, who is just another side of nature personified. The MUTO would have laid eggs (hundreds) and then... We'd all be gone. they'd go worldwide and take all the radiation, destroy us, go back and leave us as dust. I thought it was interesting and depressing. The film ends hammering in human insignificance and how pathetic we are to think we're above all else. -Godzilla as a character is... a non-character. In the other films, he has a sense of emotion or personality. In this he is nothing. he shows up, kills the MUTO, and goes back to the sea. That's all. - Godzilla in the original film was the enemy and represented the H-Bomb and from that the US Army. In this film he works for the US Army as a hero and is praised as the savior. The point of the original is to show the evil of mankind through WWII and the H-Bomb. Way to shit all over the entire message of the original. Horrific. There is also no real explanation as to why Godzilla is who he is, why he's the hero. Why does he show up and kill the MUTO and go home? Why doesn't he also try to get some radiation? Why would he help us? Why will he crush the city without a thought but deliberately not hurt the US military, aside stupid propaganda planted by the film? He must have killed thousands of people in this film but in the end he's praised as the hero of humanity or some shit. Fucking stupid. This is another issue that could have been avoided if it was more fun. It'd have been easier to suspend that disbelief. In this though, it's unrealistic (unrealistic within the context of the film don't be an ass and call me out on realism in a sci-fi film cos fuck that pedantry) and doesn't make sense. -The constant cutting away from action was lame as hell, trying to use it as a build-up to promise action but instead being constant let-downs. -there's like loads of little things that sucked as well like how they actualy called it Godzilla out of nothing (godzilla is a meaningless word, [I]Gojira[/I] means Gorilla-whale. Even the 1998 version had an excuse for calling it Godzilla lol, over mis-communication which was dumb but still), how the military stuff looked like generic shit out of a Michael bay film or something (that goddamn blue war-room), them running across the bridge with gaps bigger than the planks themselves was just impossible, no one saw or heard the second MUTO escape containment, stopping the train with the EMP was a cheap reason to put the asian kid in danger and then when they get to the rescue place his parents are just instantly right behind him (thus rendering ATJ's rescuing him pointless emotion-bait which is still failed at). Godzilla should have like, eaten the MUTO or something. That'd give some justification of his appearance, he's hunting for prey, since there is literally no reason for him to exist as the film stands. yep theres my thoughts on Godzilla lol

[QUOTE=mikeyt493;44870265]ok yea Godzilla [B]5/10[/B] a whole lot of fuckin text[/QUOTE] you should probably wrap that in spoilers

[QUOTE=Butthurter;44870155]word to the wise, youre better off avoiding 90% of the roger moore bond films[/QUOTE] I know, but I only have A View to a Kill left, and I wanted to watch all the movies chronologically. I understand how masochistic it is to do that, but what the hell.

[QUOTE=The_J_Hat;44870361]I know, but I only have A View to a Kill left, and I wanted to watch all the movies chronologically. I understand how masochistic it is to do that, but what the hell.[/QUOTE] Is it? I think it's important to watch all Bond films at least once, and the best way to do it is chronologically. It's fascinating how they show passing trends, and approaches different every decade to the topic of idealized spy.

[B]L.A. Confidential [/B]- 8/10 I can see where L.A. Noire got all its inspiration.

Xmen Days of Future Past - 8/10 Not at all what I expected, it was good although fucking cluttered with incoherent stuff that bothered me. I get it's a superhero movie and shit but when you try to put something like a radio emitter in the 1970s that can trigger emergency sprinklers or whatever you call them throughout the pentagon, it's just dumb. The future moments were really fucking tough and deaths were brutal as shit, completely unexpected for a movie like that.

[QUOTE=A B.A. Survivor;44869508][I]Cloverfield[/I] was the first movie to make me unable to focus on anything happening on-screen.[/QUOTE] That was Elysium for me

so i was watching Prometheus again because i hate myself and i realised why they ran away from the rolling spaceship in a straight line. There was spaceship debris raining from the sky and if the 2 women went left or right they would have been killed by debris. (the engineer's ship was always above their heads, protecting them from the metal rain)

Her (2013): 8.5/10 I loved all of it, really great love story considering he's in love with an AI. [sp] I especially liked the owl carrying him away like how love carries him in one scene, it was a great shot.[/sp]

I thought the [sp]owl on the billboard[/sp] was literally the worst thing in the film. Painfully heavy-handed and obvious in a commendably subtle and personal film.

[QUOTE=meppers;44872443]so i was watching Prometheus again because i hate myself and i realised why they ran away from the rolling spaceship in a straight line. There was spaceship debris raining from the sky and if the 2 women went left or right they would have been killed by debris. (the engineer's ship was always above their heads, protecting them from the metal rain)[/QUOTE] i'd rather take my chances with debris that might hit me than a giant space ship that definitely will crush me

tbh I didn't care about "well they could just jump out of the way" because that scene was really well shot Man now I'm remembering how fuckin' good the first Prometheus trailer was, that shit was awesome

[QUOTE=Joz;44870572]Is it? I think it's important to watch all Bond films at least once, and the best way to do it is chronologically. It's fascinating how they show passing trends, and approaches different every decade to the topic of idealized spy.[/QUOTE] I am over-exaggerating, but you have to admit, the Moore era is a pretty drab stretch of ridiculous movies, punctuated only by The Spy Who Loved Me, which is genuinely a great Bond movie.

[QUOTE=TheFilmSlacker;44871833]Roger Moore was a fucking [I] TERRIBLE [/I] Bond. Pierce was great, but aside from Goldeneye, I found the actual plots to his Bond movies to be fairly boring. Die Another Day was a joke.[/QUOTE] While I prefer Brosnan, Moore isn't a particularly bad Bond. He's entertaining, but the movies are poorly written.

Timothy Dalton is still my favourite Bond, he was the brutal, hard-ass Bond long before Daniel Craig ever came into the picture.

My favorites would be Connery and Lazenby. You may disagree but I like Lazenby's over too much enthusiastic performance, his cheesiness is warm to me. Connery because well Connery. On the side, Roger Moores movies are terrible because the way they are so campy. My favorites though have to be Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker

I'm really glad a sequel is coming out for Prometheus, because it [i]was[/i] entertaining throughout in my opinion and a lot of the movie's plotholes can easily be filled in with another film. But still, things like getting lost when you have a 3d mapping of the entire system aren't really things you can fix with a sequel.

I really did not like Prometheus, just so boring overall imo.

[QUOTE=Yogkog;44874158]I'm really glad a sequel is coming out for Prometheus, because it [i]was[/i] entertaining throughout in my opinion and a lot of the movie's plotholes can easily be filled in with another film. But still, things like getting lost when you have a 3d mapping of the entire system aren't really things you can fix with a sequel.[/QUOTE] I enjoyed Prometheus. It has some really glaring shit points (e.g. lol let's play with this alien thing we just found it definitely won't horrifically murder us, awful old man makeup, etc.) but it also had a lot of strong stuff (e.g. the CGI, design, music, Michael Fassbender). I feel like I enjoyed it more than most. I think I might just have an easier time ignoring the shit to enjoy the good stuff it had.

[QUOTE=TheKritter71;44874060]My favorites would be Connery and Lazenby. You may disagree but I like Lazenby's over too much enthusiastic performance, his cheesiness is warm to me. Connery because well Connery. On the side, Roger Moores movies are terrible because the way they are so campy. My favorites though have to be Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker[/QUOTE] Right on. My favorites are On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Goldfinger, with a shout-out to Casino Royale.

So I saw Godzilla. I'll just repost what I stated in the Godzilla thread, in that while I absolutely loved the movie, there were still a few flaws with it: First off, it felt like the movie tried to tease you too many times. It would have been nice if there was just one "hey, monsters about to fight, let's cut to something else!", but they did it a whole bunch of times. Still, considering the payoff we got in the end, maybe it was worth it. Second, I liked the fact that they put focus on the human characters (contrary to popular belief, a LOT of Godzilla movies did that. Not just the original one.), but only Bryan Cranston's character seemed interesting, and he was severely underutilized. The rest of the cast just couldn't compete. You'd think Ken Watanabe's character would have been a close second, but he spends most of the movie spouting pseudo-intellectual "arrogance of man" lines while maintaining a permanent look of "curiously horrified" on his face. Aaron Taylor Johnson hardly seemed to emote at all, and Elizabeth Olsen was just okay. The child actor was a child actor. Thirdly, there were just some moments in the movie that seemed a little silly. I don't want to go into too much detail, but there were a lot of parts where I had to ask myself "how did those characters miss that???". Also, for a movie backed by the Pentagon, they sure seemed to have portrayed the military as grossly incompetent, even for a Godzilla movie. Still, despite all that, I still think the movie was awesome and I kinda want to go straight back to the theater to see it again. It's a solid B in my books.

[QUOTE=Xenomoose;44874483]You'd think Ken Watanabe's character would have been a close second, but he spends most of the movie spouting pseudo-intellectual "arrogance of man" lines while maintaining a permanent look of "curiously horrified" on his face.[/QUOTE] Holy [I]crap[/I]. I thought I was the only one who thought his face looked super weird the whole time.