Rate the Last Movie You Saw

[brlesh]

Saw 28 Years Later the other night, and understand why the movie is so divisive.

If you are looking for a non-stop zombie action movie, 28 Years Later isn’t it. The scenes with the zombies / infected are well used in the storyline when they are on screen, but 28 Years Later is as much, if not more, a coming of age story about a 12 year old boy growing up under difficult family circumstances 28 years after the fall of society as we know it.

The movie is well acted, especially the young actor who plays Spike (the boy).

The infected scenes are well handled, and there was an interesting sub-plot about the infected mutating and evolving.

My biggest complaint with the film is the ending, which was so jarring and out of context with the rest of the movie.

The ending did answer a lingering question from the beginning of the movie, but that question could have been answered in a less jarring manner.

Overall I enjoyed 28 Years Later, and most fans of the previous two movies will probably find enough to liked in this third installment, the last three minutes not withstanding.

B

[Ben Staad]

John and The Hole. I guess this is an art house style drama. Not much drama, hard to watch, and besides feeling a profound sadness for a disabled child and broken home there isn't much there.

1.5 out of 5.

[Ben Staad]

Synchronic. A sci-fi, time traveling film, set in Louisiana. I liked pretty much everything about this one. There are some big gaps in the story but they did a great job of pushing the narrative forward and not providing much time to think about things. Straight forward and very watchable. Some nice dialogue, solid acting, and the visuals and music weren't bad either.

3.5 out of 5.

[Sock Monkey]

Synchronic. A sci-fi, time traveling film, set in Louisiana. I liked pretty much everything about this one. There are some big gaps in the story but they did a great job of pushing the narrative forward and not providing much time to think about things. Straight forward and very watchable. Some nice dialogue, solid acting, and the visuals and music weren't bad either.

3.5 out of 5.

I caught Synchronic at Fantastic Fest a few years back and while I enjoyed it--as I do with all of Benson and Moorhead's stuff--I found the beginning of the movie with this almost post-apocalyptic Louisiana so compelling that I was a little bummed with where the film eventually went. I need to give it another watch to see if my thoughts change now that I know where the film lands.

[Sock Monkey]

Saw 28 Years Later the other night, and understand why the movie is so divisive.

If you are looking for a non-stop zombie action movie, 28 Years Later isn’t it. The scenes with the zombies / infected are well used in the storyline when they are on screen, but 28 Years Later is as much, if not more, a coming of age story about a 12 year old boy growing up under difficult family circumstances 28 years after the fall of society as we know it.

The movie is well acted, especially the young actor who plays Spike (the boy).

The infected scenes are well handled, and there was an interesting sub-plot about the infected mutating and evolving.

My biggest complaint with the film is the ending, which was so jarring and out of context with the rest of the movie.

The ending did answer a lingering question from the beginning of the movie, but that question could have been answered in a less jarring manner.

Overall I enjoyed 28 Years Later, and most fans of the previous two movies will probably find enough to liked in this third installment, the last three minutes not withstanding.

B

So I caught this a couple weeks back at the local drive-in (which I actually really enjoy going to; the video isn't as crisp as an actual theatre and the sound obviously suffers as well, but there's something so simple and unpretentious about it that I find appealing) on a double feature with Jurassic Park: Rebirth, which I'll get to in a bit. I absolutely agree with all the points you make in your post: the cast is great, including the kid playing Spike; the infected scenes are actually quite intense, and it builds on the first films without tarnishing it (though an argument could be made that 28 Weeks Later already did that). I also agree that the ending comes off as not just jarring, but almost ridiculous. After we get this very ponderous, melancholic time spent in the Bone Temple, the film ends on some silliness. There also was some great use of editing in the film with intercutting both sound and video that I really liked. Overall, I liked the film and was glad to see Danny Boyle back in top form. Grade: B

Jurassic Park: Rebirth, on the other hand, is probably the most impressively stupid movie I've watched in a long time. Now, to be fair, I didn't watch the previous two films in the franchise; I tapped out when Chris Pratt made friends with the raptors. To be fair, Gareth Edwards is a solid director and any of the scenes involving dinosaur action is executed very well. It's just that everything that is not an action set piece is just plain bad. Both Scarlett Johannson and Mahershala Ali are completely wasted in this film, but at least Ali seems to know what film he's in. Johannson, on the other hand, feels so tonally out of place and could have easily just been removed from the plot for how little she actually comes into play versus any of the other random characters. Then there's the family that gets rescued by the Johannson and crew, but consist of the single most unlikeable character ever that I hated more than the actual "human bad guy" of the film. On top of the this, the jokes don't land and it hits the beats of so many of its predecessors that I can't really recommend this beyond maybe a lazy Sunday between naps. Grade: D-

[dannyboy121070]

So I caught this a couple weeks back at the local drive-in (which I actually really enjoy going to; the video isn't as crisp as an actual theatre and the sound obviously suffers as well, but there's something so simple and unpretentious about it that I find appealing) on a double feature with Jurassic Park: Rebirth, which I'll get to in a bit. I absolutely agree with all the points you make in your post: the cast is great, including the kid playing Spike; the infected scenes are actually quite intense, and it builds on the first films without tarnishing it (though an argument could be made that 28 Weeks Later already did that). I also agree that the ending comes off as not just jarring, but almost ridiculous. After we get this very ponderous, melancholic time spent in the Bone Temple, the film ends on some silliness. There also was some great use of editing in the film with intercutting both sound and video that I really liked. Overall, I liked the film and was glad to see Danny Boyle back in top form. Grade: B

Jurassic Park: Rebirth, on the other hand, is probably the most impressively stupid movie I've watched in a long time. Now, to be fair, I didn't watch the previous two films in the franchise; I tapped out when Chris Pratt made friends with the raptors. To be fair, Gareth Edwards is a solid director and any of the scenes involving dinosaur action is executed very well. It's just that everything that is not an action set piece is just plain bad. Both Scarlett Johannson and Mahershala Ali are completely wasted in this film, but at least Ali seems to know what film he's in. Johannson, on the other hand, feels so tonally out of place and could have easily just been removed from the plot for how little she actually comes into play versus any of the other random characters. Then there's the family that gets rescued by the Johannson and crew, but consist of the single most unlikeable character ever that I hated more than the actual "human bad guy" of the film. On top of the this, the jokes don't land and it hits the beats of so many of its predecessors that I can't really recommend this beyond maybe a lazy Sunday between naps. Grade: D-

As far as the goofy last few minutes of 28 YEARS LATER, it seems to have hit completely different for UK audiences, so I'd advise anyone interested to google JImmy Saville, which will explain a lot.

As far as JP, all I can think about these movies is "When the eff are they going to get away from these islands? FALLEN KINGDOM set up a world with dinosaurs running loose, and then the next movie was like "Nah, let's go back to an island!".....and here we go again.

[Sock Monkey]

As far as the goofy last few minutes of 28 YEARS LATER, it seems to have hit completely different for UK audiences, so I'd advise anyone interested to google JImmy Saville, which will explain a lot.

As far as JP, all I can think about these movies is "When the eff are they going to get away from these islands? FALLEN KINGDOM set up a world with dinosaurs running loose, and then the next movie was like "Nah, let's go back to an island!".....and here we go again.

Oh, thanks for the heads up regarding 28 Years Later. I only have a passing knowledge about Jimmy Saville, but the movie makes a lot more sense within that context. Still, all the leaping parkour stuff was little strange.

And I agree with these Jurassic Park films. They really just don't know what to do with them it seems like.

[dannyboy121070]

We saw Superman and Fantastic Four on their respective opening weekends. Superman was a lot of fun. I liked how they just jumped into a fully-formed world with no time or interest in origin stories, you just hit the ground running and catch up as you go. Fun film, and James Gunn really seems to get the character. My son and I loved it, my wife hated it.

Fantastic Four: First Steps looked amazing in Imax 3-D, and the peppy 60s-throwback storytelling really worked with these characters. It was amazing to see a comic-accurate Galactus in a movie...I never thought I would live to see the day. My son and I both loved it, and my wife said she "had a great time".

[brlesh]

I saw Together the other night, which I thought was pretty good combination of folk and body horror.

A dysfunctional couple move to small, rural town for the girlfriend’s new teaching job. Mid thirties, been together 10 years, the boyfriend (Tim) is a want-to-be rock star, though he lacks the ambition to truly chase his dream. He’s basically a loser that can’t commit, but is also deathly afraid of being alone. The girlfriend (Millie) is more practical and definitely the adult one in the relationship.

After moving into the new house, they go for a walk in the woods, get caught in a rain storm, and literally stumble upon what they think at the time is a cave. After spending the night in the cave, their relationship starts to change in increasingly weird ways.

I thought the acting by the two leads was pretty good, and frankly, most of the characters other than the leads were pretty peripheral.

The effects were interesting, and helped to tell the story.

Overall I enjoyed together, and was pleasantly surprised on taking a chance on a movie that wasn’t really on my radar.

B

[Sock Monkey]

We saw Superman and Fantastic Four on their respective opening weekends. Superman was a lot of fun. I liked how they just jumped into a fully-formed world with no time or interest in origin stories, you just hit the ground running and catch up as you go. Fun film, and James Gunn really seems to get the character. My son and I loved it, my wife hated it.

Fantastic Four: First Steps looked amazing in Imax 3-D, and the peppy 60s-throwback storytelling really worked with these characters. It was amazing to see a comic-accurate Galactus in a movie...I never thought I would live to see the day. My son and I both loved it, and my wife said she "had a great time".

Though I'm much more a DC fan than a Marvel one, I still haven't seen Superman. I did, however, go see Fantastic Four: First Steps on Friday. Once again I hit up the local drive-in theater and they doubled FF with The Thunderbolts, which I didn't see when it first came out.

I wasn't too sure where I would land with FF. I was a little iffy on the whole Shalla-Bal as the Silver Surfer, not due to any weird sexist thing, but mostly because I just want to see live action versions of the characters I grew up with and Norrin Radd was my Silver Surfer, but felt they did the character justice, even though they didn't give the character much of an arc. Galactus could have came off as super-goofy, but, man, they really the menace of the character. I loved the set designs and they finally gave Jack Kirby some spotlight in the credits with a quote from him, which was nice considering his contribution to Marvel is considered as significant as Stan Lee's but he rarely gets the spotlight that Lee did. The only drawback to the movie was that it felt like there was a little too much crammed into the film and I didn't really get to know any of the FF as people. The film pivots around the birth of Reed and Sue's son Franklin, and the pregnancy and birth is given some weight supposedly shifting some dynamics in the group, but I never felt grounded with the any of the characters beforehand, so it all felt rather surface level. This was the main point that tripped the movie up for my wife as well. Overall, I thought the movie was really well done, but for the story they wanted to tell, the film could have used another 30 minutes or so to flesh things out. Grade: B

All eyes have been on the box office performance for FF, and rightly so after some disappointing results from Marvel's latest films, but after seeing The Thunderbolts, I kinda feel like this one the general public slept on. Ostensibly a sequel to Black Widow and The Falcon & Winter Soldier, this mashed-up team flick, with its exploration of guilt, loneliness, and depression, is probably one of the most thematically heavy Marvel films, but it does it with a rather skillful touch. And we get actual character arcs--something woefully missing from The Marvels and Captain America: New World Order. Florence Pugh anchors this film as Yelena, but there is so much good stuff going with Wyatt Russell's USAgent (Okay, they haven't named him that yet, but that's John Walker in the comics), and Lewis Pullman as Bob. David Harbour is so much fun as Red Guardian and, though I wasn't a huge fan to begin with, now I can't get enough of Sebastian Stan as the Bucky/the Winter Soldier. I really think this one is a grower and should be held up as top-level Marvel with the likes of Captain America: Winter Soldier, Civil War, and the Spider-Man films. This felt like a return to form. Grade: A

[Ben Staad]

I saw an ad for that the other day and wondered what the movie was about. Sounds interesting.

I saw Together the other night, which I thought was pretty good combination of folk and body horror.

A dysfunctional couple move to small, rural town for the girlfriend’s new teaching job. Mid thirties, been together 10 years, the boyfriend (Tim) is a want-to-be rock star, though he lacks the ambition to truly chase his dream. He’s basically a loser that can’t commit, but is also deathly afraid of being alone. The girlfriend (Millie) is more practical and definitely the adult one in the relationship.

After moving into the new house, they go for a walk in the woods, get caught in a rain storm, and literally stumble upon what they think at the time is a cave. After spending the night in the cave, their relationship starts to change in increasingly weird ways.

I thought the acting by the two leads was pretty good, and frankly, most of the characters other than the leads were pretty peripheral.

The effects were interesting, and helped to tell the story.

Overall I enjoyed together, and was pleasantly surprised on taking a chance on a movie that wasn’t really on my radar.

B

[dannyboy121070]

I thought Thunderbolts was a great film, and I loved seeing the second-tier characters from other projects get a chance to shine. Florence Pugh, hell, the entire cast, they were all perfect. (I can live without Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her cut-rate Nick Fury, though.) I suspect we won't be seeing more films like this from Marvel, certainly not starring this group of characters, after the film was branded a huge flop.Chalk it up to super-hero fatigue? Maybe. I'm as big of a lifelong Marvel fan as they come, but I now have four Disney + Marvel series that I have yet to watch, and most of the Marvel films since Endgame have been substandard. Looking forward to the upcoming Avengers films, I give zero shits about seeing Captain Marvel, Shang-Chi, The Eternals, Namor, the 50-lb Black Panther girl....they have not managed to create any new, memorable film characters to replace the ones that have died or moved on. I feel like Disney, Marvel, and Kevin Feige just assume that the same fans will see every film, and it's just guaranteed money, so they have been content to pump out "Meh" films...clearly, this is not the case, as we seem to be settling into MCU films grossing $400 million instead of the expected billion they were used to. (FF supposedly took a disastrous decline in it's second weekend.) We'll see if the return of the Russo brothers and Robert Downey Jr. can turn things around for them. I think the Downey nostalgia is misplaced....People love his portrayal of Tony Stark, the egotistical, glib sarcasm machine. That is....NOT Dr. Doom. To be decided, I suppose.

[dannyboy121070]

I watched a few new-to-streaming movies over the past couple of nights. My wife and son are visiting her parents in Georgia, so I can watch WHATEVER I WANT, mwaaah-haa-haaa!

DEATH OF A UNICORN, streaming on HBO Max, was marketed as a dark comedy, but it played more as a straight-on monster movie. There were a few weird moments that may have been intended to be funny, but I barely cracked a smile.Paul Rudd and his daughter Jenna Ortega run over a unicorn in a wildlife preserve, and face the wrath of the deceased's parents. Glad I didn't pay to see this!

ABOUT MY FATHER on Peacock. I'm not at all a fan of Sebastian Maniscalco's stand-up, at least what little I've seen of it, but this brief little trifle made me laugh out loud on three or four occasions, mainly due to Robert De Niro's fish-out-of-water performance as Maniscalco's father. I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. Peacock has now quietly started showing ads during the movies, where they only used to show ads before the movie. Dropping Peacock next month because of this...

THE MONKEY, on Hulu. First, an ad vent. I have some kind of insane 99 cent a month deal on Hulu, so I expect ads, but FUUUUCK. Hulu is virtually unwatchable. Their ad program is totally unpredictable. I watched the new animated Predator movie the night it premiered, and....not one ad. This movie had SIX commercial breaks, and now a lot of the ads are interactive, meaning you get a screen that says "Pick your Veoza/Viagra/Ex-Lax experience", and you have to pick which fucking ad you want to watch, otherwise the screen will just sit there forever until you pick. So now you can no longer passively ignore ads, they will command you to actually watch them. 99 cents a month is too much for this. Dropping Hulu next month. As for the film itself, I assume this was meant to be hilariously, darkly funny, but it just had so much over-the-top gore that it bored me. I was actually angry at myself for watching it by the time it was over. The completely horrible actor who played the adult twins did the film no favors. The movie should have stayed focused on the twins as kids, since the actor playing them could, you know...actually act. This is the third or forth film by Oz Perkins that I've seen, and aside from THE BLACKCOAT'S DAUGHTER, which was slow and ponderous, but really paid off in the end, I've hated all of the rest. I found LONGLEGS to be as exciting as watching mold grow on old bread, and this was no better. I just read an interview with Ari Aster, whose film HEREDITARY I absolutely loved, and he quoted his father, who, after seeing BEAU IS AFRAID and EDDINGTON, told him "Maybe instead of writing AND directing, you should leave the writing to someone else next time." Perkins wrote and directed THE MONKEY, and...he should stop writing. I hope Stephen King made some good bank off of this turd.

Tonight was FREAKY TALES on HBO Max, and I really, really enjoyed this oddball film. It's kind of like a bizarro PULP FICTION meets REPO MAN, set in 1988 Oakland, with four interweaving stories making up the narrative. If I had know that this was directed by the duo that made the awful CAPTAIN MARVEL, I would have steered waaaaay clear of it, but I'm glad I watched. Seeing this explains a LOT of what I hated about that film, though....they seem to have a real fixation with the late 80s/early 90s, video stores, punk rock, etc. Pedro Pascal, Ben Mendelsohn, and the guy that owns the video store (No spoilers!) were all great.

[Ben Staad]

dannyboy121070 Thanks for the reviews and heads up on streaming services. I've certainly turned into an old dude and don's sign up for many of those these days. I'm shocked to hear that Hulu is doing interactive adverts. That would piss me off to no end.

I had hoped to watch The Monkey at some point but I hadn't heard much about it, little fan fair, and given your review, I can cool my jets on catching this at some point.

I'm trying to watch an action flick called Kandahar on Pluto. The service is free but it is almost unwatchable with the volume of ads. Way worse than what network TV used to do back in the day on the yearly showings of Sound of Music, Charlie, Oz, Spartacus, or Gone with the Wind.

[dannyboy121070]

dannyboy121070 Thanks for the reviews and heads up on streaming services. I've certainly turned into an old dude and don's sign up for many of those these days. I'm shocked to hear that Hulu is doing interactive adverts. That would piss me off to no end.

I had hoped to watch The Monkey at some point but I hadn't heard much about it, little fan fair, and given your review, I can cool my jets on catching this at some point.

I'm trying to watch an action flick called Kandahar on Pluto. The service is free but it is almost unwatchable with the volume of ads. Way worse than what network TV used to do back in the day on the yearly showings of Sound of Music, Charlie, Oz, Spartacus, or Gone with the Wind.

Yeah, I sometimes put on Pluto when I'm working, to have an old sitcom playing as background noise, but as far as movies...the ads are just unbearable, and their random, odd placement is very annoying.