Rate the Last Movie You Saw

[Ben Staad]

As a quick follow-up, to a prior conversation elsewhere, I never could finish this series. I really felt like it was flat with boring characters.

Me too, Jeff! I thought it was great!

[Martin]

As a quick follow-up, to a prior conversation elsewhere, I never could finish this series. I really felt like it was flat with boring characters.

I have watched two episodes of Hill House and am not impressed yet. I will get at least two more episodes in before I give up.

[Sock Monkey]

I have watched two episodes of Hill House and am not impressed yet. I will get at least two more episodes in before I give up.

It is slow going for those first couple of episodes, but I'm with Brian and Jeff on this one and LOVED the show. Because there is so much going on with the rather large cast in two different time periods it takes a while to connect to the characters, but, man, there is so gut punches in this one.

[Sock Monkey]

Bad Times at the El Royale: I really enjoyed this one. A dark neo-noir that had a very surprising amount of guts in its twists and turns. It doesn't always work as well as I'd like, but I never really knew where it was going to end up. You also just can't beat the cast. Grade: B


First Man: I like Ryan Gosling enough and I've enjoyed both of director Damien Chazelle's previous movies, Whiplash and La La Land (I don't understand the hate this movie got; it really has a lot of charm), but this picture about Neil Armstrong just didn't do much for me. The astronaut stuff was great and Chazelle really wrung out every drop of suspense from these pieces, but the home stuff left me cold. Well made, but kind of forgettable. Grade: C+

[Sock Monkey]

Us: Jordan Peele returns after the massive success of Get Out with another horror-thriller that has posted some big numbers opening weekend. A twist on the home invasion subgenre, Peele focuses this time on a family between attacked by a mysterious group of strangers (I'm trying to avoid spoilers here). First, the positive: Lupita Nyong'o is fantastic as Adelaide, the matriarch of the family battling the trauma from a childhood experience. In fact, the cast as a whole is solid and Peele continues to show his flair as a director. Unfortunately, the movie didn't quite hit the mark for me. An early information dump eliminates any tension and gags are set up in such a ham-fisted way that when they play out it never feels clever.

And the final reveal...no spoilers from me, but it wasn't much of one.

The movie is being hailed as a work of genius, but it seems to be a lot of hangover love from Get Out. Maybe it is brilliant and it just didn't work for me. I do plan on revisiting it in the future, so maybe my thoughts will change but for now: Grade is a C+

[Ben Staad]

Interesting review. I didn't really care for "Get Out" so maybe I would like this more?

Us: Jordan Peele returns after the massive success of Get Out with another horror-thriller that has posted some big numbers opening weekend. A twist on the home invasion subgenre, Peele focuses this time on a family between attacked by a mysterious group of strangers (I'm trying to avoid spoilers here). First, the positive: Lupita Nyong'o is fantastic as Adelaide, the matriarch of the family battling the trauma from a childhood experience. In fact, the cast as a whole is solid and Peele continues to show his flair as a director. Unfortunately, the movie didn't quite hit the mark for me. An early information dump eliminates any tension and gags are set up in such a ham-fisted way that when they play out it never feels clever.

And the final reveal...no spoilers from me, but it wasn't much of one.

The movie is being hailed as a work of genius, but it seems to be a lot of hangover love from Get Out. Maybe it is brilliant and it just didn't work for me. I do plan on revisiting it in the future, so maybe my thoughts will change but for now: Grade is a C+

[Sock Monkey]

Interesting review. I didn't really care for "Get Out" so maybe I would like this more?

Maybe. Get Out had a better control of its thematic elements where I don't feel like Us quite clarifies what it's trying to say. Maybe it's meant to be open-ended--hence the twist--but I didn't leave wanting to discuss the theme, I left trying to figure out if I like the movie as an experience or not. I also think that Peele's script explains too much which winds up only making the viewer dwell the logistics of the situation, not the emotion. I'd like to go into full spoiler conversation with someone about this because even after almost a week having passed, I still can't settle on how I feel, hence the mediocre grade.

I would not discourage people from seeing the movie and can see where someone could come out saying they enjoyed it, though "masterpiece" goes a bit far.

[Ben Staad]

We probably can't discuss this much here but I felt "Get Out" was clumsy and not very interesting. The tension wasn't there for me and I wasn't surprised by the story at all. My guess is that I wouldn't care much for this one then. It takes a lot for movies to grab me anymore. Not sure what happened to me once I moved into my 40's.

Maybe. Get Out had a better control of its thematic elements where I don't feel like Us quite clarifies what it's trying to say. Maybe it's meant to be open-ended--hence the twist--but I didn't leave wanting to discuss the theme, I left trying to figure out if I like the movie as an experience or not. I also think that Peele's script explains too much which winds up only making the viewer dwell the logistics of the situation, not the emotion. I'd like to go into full spoiler conversation with someone about this because even after almost a week having passed, I still can't settle on how I feel, hence the mediocre grade.

I would not discourage people from seeing the movie and can see where someone could come out saying they enjoyed it, though "masterpiece" goes a bit far.

[Martin]

We probably can't discuss this much here but I felt "Get Out" was clumsy and not very interesting. The tension wasn't there for me and I wasn't surprised by the story at all. My guess is that I wouldn't care much for this one then. It takes a lot for movies to grab me anymore. Not sure what happened to me once I moved into my 40's.

My wife loved Get Out. I found myself checking the time hoping for it to end. Hopefully this one is better.

[subie09lega]

Interesting comments about these two movies. I really liked Get Out, watched it once and again soon after. I went to Us a few nights ago and felt a bit underwhelmed when leaving and definitely liked Get Out more. It was fine but it didn’t have an impact on me like it has on others. When I got home I turned on the radio and the evening reply of 1A was on. They were discussing Us. What a coincidence. I wanted to hear what people thought about it so listened to the whole program yesterday. They pointed out things that i didn’t think of during the screening. I’ll watch it again to glean more from it but I still think that I’ll like Get Out more.

[dannyboy121070]

Us: Jordan Peele returns after the massive success of Get Out with another horror-thriller that has posted some big numbers opening weekend. A twist on the home invasion subgenre, Peele focuses this time on a family between attacked by a mysterious group of strangers (I'm trying to avoid spoilers here). First, the positive: Lupita Nyong'o is fantastic as Adelaide, the matriarch of the family battling the trauma from a childhood experience. In fact, the cast as a whole is solid and Peele continues to show his flair as a director. Unfortunately, the movie didn't quite hit the mark for me. An early information dump eliminates any tension and gags are set up in such a ham-fisted way that when they play out it never feels clever.

And the final reveal...no spoilers from me, but it wasn't much of one.

The movie is being hailed as a work of genius, but it seems to be a lot of hangover love from Get Out. Maybe it is brilliant and it just didn't work for me. I do plan on revisiting it in the future, so maybe my thoughts will change but for now: Grade is a C+

I liked it, but the story doesn't really hold up to close scrutiny. I've been picking it apart in my head for the past week.
I have more to say, but I can't remember how to do the spoiler thingy in my post.

[dannyboy121070]

Got it!'

Spoiler!

I think that the story would have been better served if it had some kind of supernatural explanation. As it stands, "some kind of experiment" doesn't quite gel with how the tethered all matched up and married and had kids the same way that the untethered did. If they were abandoned, where did they get the miles and miles of red fabric they would need to make those jumpsuits? Who had a sewing machine and knew how to use it? Where did the gloves, sandals, and scissors come from? If they ate the rabbits, what did the rabbits eat? And, to me, the opening text, about the thousands of miles of abandoned tunnels, ruined the whole movie for me. I knew right where it was going after that. Oddly enough, my wife, and the people around us, read it and IMMEDIATELY forgot about it. Maybe folks like us, who read constantly, are more attuned to things like that. I mean, clearly, if they're TELLING YOU THIS, right up front, it might be kind of important, right? I also didn't care for the "We're Americans." line....Yeah, it made sense, in the Hands Across America context, but it was a bit heavy-handed in an allegorical sense.

Overall, I liked it, but, as usual, folks like us have seen stories like this before.

[sholloman81]

Just got around to watching season one of "Castle Rock". Overall, I did like it but feel it could have been better. For a show that was such a slow burn, I felt like the ending was a bit abrupt. I also feel like the main character of Henry should have been more likeable/relatable. Not sure if that was due to the actor or the way the character was written, but I constantly found myself caring about everyone else in scenes rather than him. When the last episode finally ended, it was hard for me to ultimately care about what happened to the main character Henry in any way. That being said, I did find the supporting cast rock solid and did enjoy the look and feel of the show. Also was fun getting to see all the Stephen King easter eggs & potential plot points. I will definitely check out season two, especially with the recent season 2 casting news of Tim Robbins as "Pop Merrill" and Lizzy Caplan as "Annie Wilkes". With the way season one ended, I though for sure that season 2 would be related to "The Shinning"; however, it looks like it's going to be Misery/The Body centric which should be pretty interesting as well.

[Brian861]

Just got around to watching season one of "Castle Rock". Overall, I did like it but feel it could have been better. For a show that was such a slow burn, I felt like the ending was a bit abrupt. I also feel like the main character of Henry should have been more likeable/relatable. Not sure if that was due to the actor or the way the character was written, but I constantly found myself caring about everyone else in scenes rather than him. When the last episode finally ended, it was hard for me to ultimately care about what happened to the main character Henry in any way. That being said, I did find the supporting cast rock solid and did enjoy the look and feel of the show. Also was fun getting to see all the Stephen King easter eggs & potential plot points. I will definitely check out season two, especially with the recent season 2 casting news of Tim Robbins as "Pop Merrill" and Lizzy Caplan as "Annie Wilkes". With the way season one ended, I though for sure that season 2 would be related to "The Shinning"; however, it looks like it's going to be Misery/The Body centric which should be pretty interesting as well.

I still haven't watched the last 3 episodes of season 1. Season two sounds like it'll a lot more interesting.

[bsaenz24]

Pet Sematary (2019). What a waste of a remake. The first half was ok, but the second half just went off the rails. I don't care that it was different from the first. That's fine. I don't like what they did with the story period. I thought the second half was pretty stupid.