Rate the Last Movie You Saw

[Ben Staad]

There are many things I didn't care for but the little vignettes early on really pulls you out of the movie. It also had that feel of trying to be to cool. It did not work.

Caught this on streaming a few nights ago, and was pretty disappointed...was hoping/expecting better. 2 out of 5 (for any kind of movie) sounds about right to me.

[RonClinton]

3 out of 5 for a action movie. 2 out of 5 for a general movie. Bullet Train. If you saw the trailer you pretty much get the gist of the movie. It could have been 30 minutes shorter.

Caught this on streaming a few nights ago, and was pretty disappointed...was hoping/expecting better. 2 out of 5 (for any kind of movie) sounds about right to me.

[Sock Monkey]

The Untouchables (1987): I had really good memories of this film: Ness's initial bust gone wrong, the raid on the bridge, the scene in the train station. These were all seared into my brain from watching it when I was younger. Upon rewatching the movie last night, I found out why: There's nothing to the movie than the recognizable set pieces. It's like all the connective tissue in the film was removed, including any sort of arc to the characters or even something to make them rise above being fairly stereotypical. This results in a rapid fire pace, but absolutely no tension in the proceedings and wound up being rather boring. Grade: C

[Sock Monkey]

3 out of 5 for a action movie. 2 out of 5 for a general movie. Bullet Train. If you saw the trailer you pretty much get the gist of the movie. It could have been 30 minutes shorter.

That's a bummer. I was looking forward to that one. Trailer was great but overall reception, including your post, has been lukewarm.

[Ben Staad]

3 out of 5 for a action movie. 2 out of 5 for a general movie. Bullet Train. If you saw the trailer you pretty much get the gist of the movie. It could have been 30 minutes shorter.

[Sock Monkey]

Tried to watch Lamb and while I enjoy a slow pace this thing was glacial. I didn't finish it but may give it a try at another time.

I struggled with the pacing at first as well until I realized that the movie was more a leisurely stroll rather than a sprint. In hindsight, my appreciation for it has grown, but it isn't really a movie I'd recommend.

[Ben Staad]

Tried to watch Lamb and while I enjoy a slow pace this thing was glacial. I didn't finish it but may give it a try at another time.

[Sock Monkey]

I just watched Wes Craven Presents Carniival of Souls (1998). This Carnival of Souls has some good scenes. The plot? jumps around. It's not an awful movie. It only has the name of the original 1962 movie Carnival of Souls and the same type of revelation at the end. The original movie IMO is far superior. I have the original movie and have watched and do love it.

Cap

I really need to get around to watching the original again. I remember catching most of it on the Sci-Fi Channel like 25 years ago. I’ve been eyeing the Criterion blu-ray for years but keep pushing it off for some reason.

[c marvel]

I just watched Wes Craven Presents Carniival of Souls (1998). This Carnival of Souls has some good scenes. The plot? jumps around. It's not an awful movie. It only has the name of the original 1962 movie Carnival of Souls and the same type of revelation at the end. The original movie IMO is far superior. I have the original movie and have watched and do love it.

Cap

[jeffingoff]

t

Great review, Jeff. You did the exact same thing that I did....I kept sitting there mumbling "Why...? What were they thinking?"

A movie like this should write itself. JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM set up a stupid, but fun, premise for the third film in the trilogy: Dinosaurs are loose in civilization, and running wild. So we're going to finally see dinos running amuck in cities, people fighting for their lives as a T-Rex smashes into their house, kids and pets being snatched up by Pterodactyls!!! Fuck that! Let's do giant crop-eating locusts instead! That's the same kind of mentality at work here. WE KNOW BETTER THAN THE FANS. They want THIS, but we'll give them THAT, and they'll fucking love it, or else. Jamie Lee Curtis and the filmmakers have been giving interviews where they laugh about how much fans are going to hate this film. So....why make it?

I was blown away by the 2018 HALLOWEEN, and it ended on a perfect note. Michael was dead, Laurie beat him at his own game. The film was good enough that I had faith the filmmakers would be able to pull off a trilogy, but I wondered what they could possibly do to fill two more films. Now we know they had no plan at all. I enjoyed HALLOWEEN KILLS for the great gore and kills, and the beast-mode Michael Myers, despite some REALLY cringey dialogue (EVIL DIES TONIGHT!!) and the lack of Laurie, but, taking the trilogy as a whole, it was clear that they had no idea what to do after the first film.

Spoiler!

Soooo many things about HALLOWEEN ENDS bothered me. One year after Michael kills what looked like everyone in town on Halloween night, things are completely back to normal? Everyone is out trick-or-treating, partying, roaming the streets like the HALLOWEEN KILLER ISN'T STILL ON THE LOOSE??? I would expect the streets to be deserted, cops patrolling everywhere, nationwide news crews reporting on the town that banned Halloween celebrations.....

Even from the first scene, Corey is a weird guy. I wouldn't leave my kid with him. And the granddaughter immediately falling in love with him, to the point of wanting to run away with him a day or two after a REALLY FUCKING WEIRD first date? OK.....

So Michael has been hiding three feet inside a storm drain, killing people in front of the old homeless guy for four years....and the police never looked there?

Laurie was chased by Michael for a few minutes 40 years ago, and went nuts and became a survivalist hermit....but after he kills her daughter and half the town, and IS STILL ON THE LOOSE, she decides to become Betty Crocker? Sure, that would happen.

It still would have sucked, but what I was expecting to happen was that Corey was committing all of the murders WITH Laurie's granddaughter, and that the big twist would be the cops finding Michael's skeleton, with him having been dead for years. I expected Pennywise Michael to be a hallucination by Corey, and the murders were being seen through his skewed perspective. He was dressed like Michael, and the granddaughter was wearing the other mask, and the end would see Laurie fighting and killing Corey and her own granddaughter, who had been corrupted by Haddonfield's evil. I mean, the choppy editing showed Corey killing the Doctor and the slutty Nurse, and then he was riding his bike with the granddaughter. That said to me that they were committing the murders together. Which would still have been a shitty movie, just shitty in a different way.

Despite assurances when the first film came out in 2018 that we would learn why Michael was so fixated on Laurie, we never did. So he just randomly chased Corey to her house top pick up his stolen mask...? OK.

This was just....bad. Insulting. The choppiness of the editing makes me think that there is a whole other film out there somewhere, that will probably be cobbled into a Director's cut at some point. It probably won't make it a GOOD film, but it might make it a bit more coherent.

At the end of the day, I can tell myself that three generations of Strode women trapped Michael in a burning house, and evil died there. That was a fitting, satisfying ending.

Fantastic review! Now I'm pissed all over again!

[Ben Staad]

I'm trying to watch Bad Times at the El Royale and with 44 minutes I may tap out. To me this feels like someone trying really, really, really hard to be cool but their lameness still finds it's way to the surface.

2 out of 5.

Edit/Update: Finished the whole movie. Keeping the rating the same.

[Ben Staad]

I was going to give that a go tonight or tomorrow. Maybe I'll look for something else. Plenty of options out there.

I also watched the first two episodes of the new Guillermo Del Toro series, CABINET OF CURIOSITIES. The first episode, LOT 36, was decent, but we've all seen/read this type of story before, and it goes nowhere new. The 2nd, GRAVEYARD RATS, LOOKED great, and had a great creature, but it was so wildly overacted, and the weird, jaunty music did nothing for the atmosphere they were trying to build.

[dannyboy121070]

I watched DAMIEN: OMEN II the other night, for the first time since I was a kid. I've never seen it uncut before. Not as good as I remember it being 40-some-odd years ago, but it was a decent flick. OMEN III is next. Again, I saw it on TV when I was a kid, and have very little recollection of it.

I also watched the first two episodes of the new Guillermo Del Toro series, CABINET OF CURIOSITIES. The first episode, LOT 36, was decent, but we've all seen/read this type of story before, and it goes nowhere new. The 2nd, GRAVEYARD RATS, LOOKED great, and had a great creature, but it was so wildly overacted, and the weird, jaunty music did nothing for the atmosphere they were trying to build.

[dannyboy121070]

I loved LAMB. I thought the end was worth the trip. I was planning on watching JACKSON, tonight, but maybe I'll take a pass now.

I've spent the week watching:

WHO SLEW AUNTIE ROO and WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HELEN?, a couple of oldsploitation films starring Shelly Winters. ROO is a spin on Hansel & Gretel, and HELEN is a batshit crazy story about the mothers of a pair of thrill-killers who relocate to Hollywood to start a dance studio. Murder and madness ensue. I had a blast watching both. They're on TCM on demand, and they have intros and wrap-ups by Ben Mankiewicz and Mario Cantone that hilarious and insightful.

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, which was my last shot at Ti West. As usual, this was a twenty minute premise stretched out to feature length. I loved seeing Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov, but the film is basically a girl in a not-so-creepy mansion walking around and snooping for 80 minutes. I still want to see PEARL, but I'm tapping out on any other Ti West films after that.

BARBARIAN renewed my faith in Horror for Halloween. WOW, what a bonkers film. My wife could hear me yelling "Oh, NOOOOO" from across the house. I applauded at the end. I wish I had seen this with an audience, because it must have been amazing. See this knowing as little as you can. I knew the twists already, and I was still blown away.

[Sock Monkey]

WAY behind on posting my Halloween viewing...

Halloween Horror Movie #4:

LAMB (2021): Director Vladimar Johannsson delivers an interesting folktale that strains both the need for the film's 106 minute runtime and it's definition as horror. Set in rural Iceland, an emotionally estranged couple find an unnatural newborn on their farm and decide to raise it as their own. There is little more to this film than this what this brief description provides, but Johannsson and his cast do their best to wring the most out of the idea as possible and it is amazing how unsettling Johannsson is able to make the film by his presentation of how normal it is. Unfortunately, even the unnoticed of a ne'er-do-well family member does little to move the pace and pulse of the film. Likewise, the movie's ending doesn't earn it's glacial pace by providing the thematic revelations of The Witch or the insanity of Hereditary. Instead, the ending, while thematically solid, will leave most viewers thinking it wasn't worth the effort. This assessment may lead one to think I didn't like the film, but I found a lot to admire. Johannsson's directing is assured and the acting was solid. There just wasn't nothing here that couldn't have been accomplished in sixty minutes.

Grade: C+

Halloween Horror Movie #5:

ANYTHING FOR JACKSON (2020): Sometimes movies have nuggets of ideas that are so clever that they elevate it above its flaws. Other times, the flaws snuff out the struggling flame of that good idea. This film was unfortunately the latter. The premise is clever: two grandparents kidnap a pregnant woman to perform a "reverse exorcism" in which they'll summon the spirit of their dead grandson--the titular Jackson--to possess the body of the unborn child. It's a great idea that is surrounded by other little gems, including the idea that other ghosts or demons arrive to beat Jackson to the punch. Unfortunately, the movie is either too enamored with it's monsters or too unsure if the audience has been sold on the scare, but either way, it lingers on the creatures way too long, robbing them of their creepy mystique, reducing them to haunted house actors who outstayed their scare. If you like indie horror, there might be enough here to make it worth your while as there are some flashes of cleverness.

Grade: C-

Halloween Horror Movie #6:

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): For some reason, my wife had never seen the original Nightmare, so I added it to our viewing list. There's not a whole lot to talk about here that other people haven't said before. This is considered a classic and I can see why people love it, even if I don't. Unlike most, I just can't warm up to Langenkamp's Nancy and the movie just leaves me kinda cold. The deaths are incredibly effective, though.

Grade: B-