Rate the Last Movie You Saw

[Sock Monkey]

I watched Prey on Friday night and had the weekend to mull it over. Set in the late 1700s, the movie follows a group of Comanche hunters, including a female hunter who has yet to prove herself, as they have to battle a Predator hunting in their area. I absolutely loved the idea of taking the concept of the original Predator and setting it in a time period where we had even more primitive weapons (no one is blasting the jungle apart with a gatling gun in this movie!). Even the teaser trailer showing a the female Comanche hunter running from the woods into a prairie only to be dragged down by a fellow hunter who signals that there is something in the woods and draws his bow before the signature three laser dots show up on him was incredibly effective. I was hoping for more of this pared down approach. I hate to say "a little more realistic" when dealing with a hunter from space that uses high-tech gadgetry to kill his prey and acquire trophies, but, yeah, maybe a movie where the characters were a little more original Die Hard John McClane instead of Keanu Reeves's titular John Wick. That was definitely not the case. The movie was filled with standard modern Hollywood action set pieces where our heroes can somehow slide across the forest floor or bounce of trees to launch attacks. On one hand, I loved that Hollywood has progressed from the depiction of Native Americans as "noble savages" to showing them as kick-butt warriors. But on the other, some of this left me cold as a lot of modern action movies do.

As I watching the movie, I think what it came down to was that the movie felt too modern. Beyond the title card stating the year and the rudimentary weapons and technology, the movie just didn't feel like it was set in the late 1700s. The actors were great, but all their actions and mannerisms were very modern. I'm assuming this was deliberate the on the part of the director--maybe to ostensibly show that in that time they were modern?--and the acting we see depicting that time period in other films is surely manicured artifice, but these decisions created a weird anachronistic feel to the movie that, at least for me, made the acting feel out of place in the world that is being created around them.

The ultimate takedown of the Predator was just okay, but I didn't feel that it was clever enough to feel earned. As far as the special effects, the CGI on the Predator was solid, but the CGI on the animals in the film was not very good. And we just saw the Predator too darn much. There wasn't the feeling of our heroes were being stalked and hunted so much as if they were just on the tracks when a train barreled through.

This wasn't a bad movie, but it just seemed to miss the mark for me in what I was hoping for versus what I got.

Grade: C

[Martin]

And if so, what difference does this potentially make to the story? Ricky seems to remember it well enough and it definitely happened as evidenced by the memorabilia room and the veiled former actress. So if he is an unreliable narrator, which we really only get the story through those flashbacks and the story Ricky tells about the SNL skit, what does that mean for the story? It seems like something is just out of reach of understanding. I like that Peele is not answering specifically about it.

And Martin, Where the Crawdads Sing showed up at my local theater today but it was our 12 year anniversary and we couldn't work a movie into the day but hopefully it's still there next week because I want to see it. Thanks for alerting me to it!

Happy anniversary!

[Tommy]

And if so, what difference does this potentially make to the story? Ricky seems to remember it well enough and it definitely happened as evidenced by the memorabilia room and the veiled former actress. So if he is an unreliable narrator, which we really only get the story through those flashbacks and the story Ricky tells about the SNL skit, what does that mean for the story? It seems like something is just out of reach of understanding. I like that Peele is not answering specifically about it.

And Martin, Where the Crawdads Sing showed up at my local theater today but it was our 12 year anniversary and we couldn't work a movie into the day but hopefully it's still there next week because I want to see it. Thanks for alerting me to it!

[dannyboy121070]

I generally don't like to put such deep thought into movie-watching. so I don't usually go into the "The guy with red hair was a metaphor for the way the Irish were mistreated when the came to America!" deep-dives, especially since I think most movie dissections like that are total BS, but this film was just fraught with things that I didn't connect upon my first viewing, so, yes, I would love to see it again, especially in a uncut version at Peele's original running time. I've been reading some articles about the film and interviews with Peele lately, and he seems to never want to comment on why the shoe was standing on end. Maybe it was to show that Ricky was an unreliable narrator...?

[Tommy]

I may very well have missed something, but I didn't get the impression that the shoe was used as a weapon. I figured it just flew off her foot. I think Gordy just beat them to death with his hands, since they were literally dripping blood during the fist-bump.

No you didn't miss anything, I did. The shoe was not a weapon Gordy used. I went looking for an answer and haven't found anything really amazing with regards to the shoe other than during the massacre the boy sees a strange site that defies gravity or maybe he misremembered in the horror of the moment? Not a lot but, looking it up I see now that the mother in the sitcom was an astronaut and the sitcom was set in Cape Canaveral where The Challenger disaster occurred. Both things leading back to space and in the case of The Challenger, the first disaster I can remember seeing because I was home sick from school that day and I was young but I remember. Some folks feel sympathy for Ricky and find him to be a tragic character. That is interesting and something to think about as well because he was warped by the acting system that child actors go through and then abandoned by it. This leads to the idea that abused people abuse others and so forth. I kind of want to watch it again now.

[dannyboy121070]

I may very well have missed something, but I didn't get the impression that the shoe was used as a weapon. I figured it just flew off her foot. I think Gordy just beat them to death with his hands, since they were literally dripping blood during the fist-bump.

[Tommy]

Yeah, I’ve got to agree, you got a lot more out of it than I did!

Guess I need to cut down on the vodka I sneak into the movies.

Good points - the cinematography & sound we’re very good.
NOPE is definitely a movie that needs to be seen in the theater, IMO, if you are going to see it.

The acting was good, especially the actors that played the brother & sister. Angel provided some well timed comic relief, and it was good to see Michael Wincott working again.

Lesser points - I was just kind of underwhelmed with the story. Maybe my expectations were too high going in, but I was just expecting more from the storyline.

One question, if any body can answer it: what was up with the vertical slipper/shoe in the Gordy scene?

B

We wondered about that as well. Other than it being the killing weapon and resting in a weird position? I don't know. The fact that the man put it in his private collection of memorabilia is ghoulish.

[Tommy]

Wow, Tommy! I stated I was bored with the film and was bummed since I had wanted to see it so badly. Your review actually makes me enjoy the film so much better without another watch. Thank you for opening my eyes to what was right in front of my face. Clearly, I wasn't qualified to view it lol.

Glad you enjoy it better from my scattershot thoughts and everyone who likes movies is qualified for an opinion. Some reviewers have said a movie should be good enough to not have to watch again but I really disagree with that. I've re-watched movies I didn't like just to see why I didn't like them the first time. When I was an avid reader, a reread of a story or a book was sometimes like reading it again for the first time because I missed so much the first go round.

[Sock Monkey]

Man, I feel like I need to go see NOPE so I can get in on this conversation. I love it when a movie sparks some conversation and debate.

[brlesh]

Wow, Tommy! I stated I was bored with the film and was bummed since I had wanted to see it so badly. Your review actually makes me enjoy the film so much better without another watch. Thank you for opening my eyes to what was right in front of my face. Clearly, I wasn't qualified to view it lol.

Yeah, I’ve got to agree, you got a lot more out of it than I did!

Guess I need to cut down on the vodka I sneak into the movies.

Good points - the cinematography & sound we’re very good.
NOPE is definitely a movie that needs to be seen in the theater, IMO, if you are going to see it.

The acting was good, especially the actors that played the brother & sister. Angel provided some well timed comic relief, and it was good to see Michael Wincott working again.

Lesser points - I was just kind of underwhelmed with the story. Maybe my expectations were too high going in, but I was just expecting more from the storyline.

One question, if any body can answer it: what was up with the vertical slipper/shoe in the Gordy scene?

B

[Brian861]

I saw it again this weekend because we couldn't decide what to see. I want to see Maverick but he wanted to see the dinosaur movie again for the sixth time so we saw NOPE (Not Of Planet Earth) again. I enjoyed it more the second watch. The Word spectacle is the key to that film.

Spoiler!

The real villain is the little boy who witnessed the Gordy incident but didn't learn from it. He reveled in it and did the same thing to the life form essentially. You cannot train a wild animal. Siegfried and Roy were mentioned, also numerous shots reminded me of The Birds by Hitch. One over head shot with the creature coming to the gathering is like the overhead shot of the birds descending upon the town. Spectacle, Oprah moment they mention, Oprah interviewed a woman who had her faced ripped off by her neighbor's pet chimp. That episode of Oprah is still the craziest thing I've seen in daytime TV. She now wears a veil much like the disfigured woman in the film. TMZ, nuff said. Gordy, the name, might suggest the straight to video knock off of Babe. Another example of animals being exploited for entertainment. The flags that get hung in the creature's whatever reminds me of the flags we see towards the end of Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, again spectacle (exploitation of animals). The RUN OJ RUN line comes from the biggest spectacle of last century really. The OJ Simpson trial. One shot with Emerald in shadow looking out of the window reminded me of Norma Bates standing by her window in Psycho. That was the first gigantic spectacle due to it's marketing and a film that changed the world. The world of show business, again spectacle with nods to other alien sci-fi flicks of old like the mantis on the lens as a shout out to The Deadly Mantis. Even the ending where Emerald is trying to get the pics, almost makes me think of James Stewart taking flash pictures of Raymond Burr at the end of Rear Window. The first two things we see, after the Gordy clip, are the insides of the alien and it fades into the black man on a horse footage and the final shots we see are OJ on the horse and the shot of the alien Emerald managed to get, some nice symmetry there.

Of course this is all supposition on my part but that is what I see and I did feel like a second watch helped tremendously.

Wow, Tommy! I stated I was bored with the film and was bummed since I had wanted to see it so badly. Your review actually makes me enjoy the film so much better without another watch. Thank you for opening my eyes to what was right in front of my face. Clearly, I wasn't qualified to view it lol.

[Martin]

Where the Crawdads Sing isn't playing near here. Figures.

Sorry to hear that. There is a very good chance I will go see it again before it leaves the theater.

[Tommy]

Where the Crawdads Sing isn't playing near here. Figures.

[Tommy]

And I get that every director is not going to be for every person. That's just life! Peele does get more ambitious with each project and I like the idea that his films can be seen as "Popcorn movies" but also as almost arthouse films with deep underlying sociopolitical messages.

Men was a film I liked earlier this year but it was no Popcorn Movie. It was straight metaphor storytelling throughout the whole thing. Made it more intense and it's not a film you have fun watching, you gotta think.

Peele's films, to me, can be taken both ways and I always admire a layered (especially horror) film.

And again, not saying that anyone that doesn't like his work isn't thinking hard enough or something insulting like that, far from it. I am at the point where I see patterns that aren't there sometimes from having seen so many films in my life. I immediately start analyzing on a second watch if I like the film. At one point I wanted to be a film critic but you see how terrible I am at it, HA!

Just another ramblin' stranger on the interwebs....

[Martin]

Thanks Martin and fair enough. I am not sure if I was trying to convince anyone about the movie's overall "goodness". I was sharing my thoughts after a second analytic look at the movie. I hope I didn't offend. I respect you way too much to try and strong arm you into liking a film. You are the nicest person I've met through various forums and I consider it an honor that you speak to me at all.

I certainly took no offense. I read it as you providing your thoughts on a movie you really enjoyed. In retrospect I see several of the points you make, which was interesting.