Latest Movie That You Watched!

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GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
358,754
62
Cambridge, Ohio
THank you again. Some day, somebody is going to know. They will recognize it and will be able to tell me. Yes, it must have been like a scene inserted into some movie? Maybe in the movie itself the characters were watching a movie and this was it, a make believe movie for the movie. Does that make sense?
....it tickles at my memory as well, but it appears as if we shall be saturating our Depends and eating Gloop out of a Styrofoam dish with a party hat on our withered heads, and still never know.....
 

Charms7

Just Happy To Be Here
Sep 6, 2007
4,751
6,535
72
Katy, TX *USA
....it tickles at my memory as well, but it appears as if we shall be saturating our Depends and eating Gloop out of a Styrofoam dish with a party hat on our withered heads, and still never know.....

holy hell. Let the party begin.
Gloop. Is that the stuff resembling oatmeal which is spread on a cracker made from yak intestines?
 

Neil W

Well-Known Member
May 27, 2008
1,203
2,592
Isle of Wight UK
I've googled the Writer/Director Martin McDonagh and plan on watching more of his stuff - he's got quite a few I've heard some buzz about: In Bruges.

In Bruges has more bad language than you can shake a stick at. But it is very very funny, very very dark and, at times, heartbreaking. I have a feeling that if you likes 3 Billboards you'll like In Bruges too. 7 Psychopaths, not so much.
 

Gerald

Well-Known Member
Sep 8, 2011
2,201
7,168
The Netherlands
The Ritual-good monster movie

This is the scariest horrorfilm I saw in some time. I had the feeling the sound design and music was way above average scary - because for a long time there isn't really that much that you see. Or it was the combination of that and the believable friendship of the men breaking down very gradually - that when it breaks down totally under such circumstances, you're totally on your own and you don't want that.
I liked that it got back to their trauma all the time, their friend being killed in the store. Often horrorfilms start with some trauma, and then pick up years after that and hardly get back to it - it seems often only to function just to get you interested in the character. Also to have the store actually appear in the forest made it both dramatically and visually strong.

I thought it was a bit slow at some points. But I often have this problem with films taking place in a forest, whether it's Blair Witch Project or The Forest (the Natalie Dormer film from 2016), it feels like a lot of repetition because there isn't any change in the scenery - they might as well walk past the same spot over and over.

Also saw The Mummy with Tom Cruise finally. It was even worse than I expected. Based on the trailer it felt like some weird mix of Mission Impossible and a Mummy film. It wasn't so much the former and the female Mummy itself was actually quite cool, but tonally it's all over the place, never getting really scary or truly actionpacked either, nor funny as the Brendan Fraser films were, even though it seems Cruise is going for a humorous take which he never pulls off.
Nothing in the film works, it feels like a number of individual scenes following each other up (it's not boring at least), but there is not one character you can care about and the story feels like they made it up in an afternoon so little is there.
 
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kingricefan

All-being, keeper of Space, Time & Dimension.
Jul 11, 2006
30,011
127,446
Spokane, WA
I finally watched Call Me By Your Name. Bought the bluray when it was released last week but wanted to wait until I had absolutely no distractions going on so waited until Saturday night. What a stunningly beautiful film! The two main actors (Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet) both give very heart felt (and heart rending) performances here. I realize that this film is not everybody's cup of tea and that the subject matter is controversial (think of a gay version of Lolita) but I highly recommend anyone that has a gay person in their life watch this film as it truly shows you what it is like to be young and questioning your sexuality. Timothee Chalamet gives a performance like none other that I have ever seen on what it is like to be young and exploring your desires. There's no hard core sex scenes here either, just lots of kissing. This really isn't even a 'gay' movie as it's more of a love story with all of the ins and outs (pardon the pun!) of the beginning of a relationship between two people, who just happen to be male. This film certainly deserved the accolades that it received. The speech (or talk) that the father gives to his son at the end is so touchingly devastating and uplifting at the same time. I wish that I had a supportive parent in my life when I was going through all of these feelings when I was young. I can't praise this film enough!! This film should have won the 'Best Picture' Oscar.
 

Gerald

Well-Known Member
Sep 8, 2011
2,201
7,168
The Netherlands
Watched Annihilation. Certainly a fascinating film, but leaves a lot of questions. My problem with sci-fi is that sometimes it throws up way more questions than it answers, and this is in that category. That's why I prefer horror, because there is nearly always a basis in horror, no matter how weird - in horror you usually get some sort of explanation, often in the form of a legend or some tragic past event.
A film like this though lets the viewer largely make up his own mind, and usually reviewers mark that as a sign of 'an intelligent film', but is it really that or can the writer/director simply not answer the questions he brings up himself?

In this case it doesn't matter so much, because the film is real eye-candy, with beautiful colours as opposed to the usual darker images of a lot of sci-fi horror. This idea that an alien life form also creates beauty and isn't just out here to destroy and conquer makes it different to a lot of similar films.
It's great to see Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh together and they're good as always. Also the interaction between the team members is not of the 'let's go kick some alien ass' type, but they're researchers with real interest in the strange area and the mutations that go on in it.

Once you get to the end though what appears to be the lair of the life form in the light house, looks a little too much like Giger/Alien. With such a style of its own, why not make it something more unique looking? I got the feeling that it was a case of a director-as-a-fan wanting to recreate a part of a favourite movie.

Still on the whole a very interesting film just like the earlier Ex Machina by the same director. Perhaps not something totally new, but delivered with a different kind of feel than usual.
 

osnafrank

Well-Known Member
Jan 24, 2017
7,121
50,822
47
Germany
Watched Annihilation. Certainly a fascinating film, but leaves a lot of questions. My problem with sci-fi is that sometimes it throws up way more questions than it answers, and this is in that category. That's why I prefer horror, because there is nearly always a basis in horror, no matter how weird - in horror you usually get some sort of explanation, often in the form of a legend or some tragic past event.
A film like this though lets the viewer largely make up his own mind, and usually reviewers mark that as a sign of 'an intelligent film', but is it really that or can the writer/director simply not answer the questions he brings up himself?

In this case it doesn't matter so much, because the film is real eye-candy, with beautiful colours as opposed to the usual darker images of a lot of sci-fi horror. This idea that an alien life form also creates beauty and isn't just out here to destroy and conquer makes it different to a lot of similar films.
It's great to see Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh together and they're good as always. Also the interaction between the team members is not of the 'let's go kick some alien ass' type, but they're researchers with real interest in the strange area and the mutations that go on in it.

Once you get to the end though what appears to be the lair of the life form in the light house, looks a little too much like Giger/Alien. With such a style of its own, why not make it something more unique looking? I got the feeling that it was a case of a director-as-a-fan wanting to recreate a part of a favourite movie.

Still on the whole a very interesting film just like the earlier Ex Machina by the same director. Perhaps not something totally new, but delivered with a different kind of feel than usual.

That's what defines a real good SciFi Movie.

SciFi is often Complicated, sometimes you have to watch/listen/read a good SciFi story twice ot triple to understand or make sense of it.
Oh, i like SciFi Movies like Star Trek or Alien, they are very Entertaining with a good Story etc.

But a real good SciFi Movie gets you thinking
 

Gerald

Well-Known Member
Sep 8, 2011
2,201
7,168
The Netherlands
That's what defines a real good SciFi Movie.

SciFi is often Complicated, sometimes you have to watch/listen/read a good SciFi story twice ot triple to understand or make sense of it.
Oh, i like SciFi Movies like Star Trek or Alien, they are very Entertaining with a good Story etc.

But a real good SciFi Movie gets you thinking

The problem is that often it doesn't get me thinking (or it does, but it doesn't lead to anwers), because I feel like I've been handed too little.
In the case of Annihilation for example, why has this life form come to earth would be my main question. But you don't know anything more than that it was mutating life forms here and seemed to slowly want to take over earth that way - but there was little to no info WHY it was doing that, only on the HOW.

On the other hand, someone like Cronenberg (who is somewhat on the border of sci-fi and medical horror) I get a lot out of. But it's like I understand him in a more instinctive way. I love a film like Cosmopolis - I couldn't explain it all, but it sort of makes sense in a way to me. He explores the relation between the physical and psychological in a way that's interesting to me: the way the human body transforms and adapts as a result of extraordinay circumstances (experiments, medicine), and the paranoia, fear and decline that comes with it.
But these are purely human subjects of course so it's probably easier to identify with than alien life forms.
I suppose Annihilation (like Cronenberg's films often) was in the end about identity: are the Portman and Isaac characters still the same people who they were before they went into the Shimmer, or now that they were changed by the alien life form did they lose their own identity to it?
 

Gerald

Well-Known Member
Sep 8, 2011
2,201
7,168
The Netherlands
I suppose also that with horror I mind less that it doesn't answer all the questions than with sci-fi. If you get every question answered in a horrorfilm it will lose its mystery: you should know just enough to keep being intrigued by it.
Often in a horrorfilm in the third act either the protagonist puts pieces together or comes to some realization about the nature of the evil - and this helps him fight it.

I just saw Les Affamés (2017) on Netflix. An interesting zombiefilm from Canada. But it leaves me with a question too. The zombies are building these huge piles out of furniture and stand around them just watching them. The protagonists never refer to it or question it. I just can't help thinking that when something is just totally unexplained or referred to, the director just though it was a cool image, and there isn't always a meaning behind it.

But since sci-fi is about science, you would think that it not only wants to ask questions but strive to answer them too, which is what science tries to do.