NOW CLOSED ; List some movies you've watched recently. Theatre, rental, TV... and give a */10

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Nov 20, 2009
10,043
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Re: The Counselor

I'm a fan of his movie look but a film so bad that one's fave director makes something and seven years later you are just now hearing about it? Hahahaha
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
yumm yumm .. i seem to be getting all the worst shit these days.

i watched Soldier Blue - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066390/

There's a small cinema d'essai near where i grew up, where both me and my father used to go a lot. He was a film distributor, you see, so he would go a couple of times a week. I saw many good films there, but none of them were mainstream films. Lots of foreign film, weird avant-garde movies, minor productions that didn't have a big distributor. Nothing terribly obscure, but in the 80s that was as close to art film as you could get.

He did go to see Soldier Blue and when i asked him how it was, he was very abrupt and said he was shocked at "the violence".

Soldier Blue is a 1970 film, but this was a re-release, around 1985 or so. I was young, and the movie poster - showing a nude, tied indian girl - had me intrigued. But i was worried about watching something so violent, that it shocked my dad that much.


Weeeelll it turns out he was full of shit.

Soldier blue is a lame-ass "revisionist" western, although it's revisionist in only painting the white guys as bad, but forget any semblance of realism. After a brief introduction a'la Hateful Eight, the indians massacre a convoy carrying a blonde lady, and the only survivors are the two leads, Peter Strauss (the Soldier Blue, apparently a US Cavalry regiment soldier) and Candice Bergen (Cresta Lee, "blonde object of sexual desire"). They have to "escape", crossing dangerous indian territory to bring back the blonde.

The soldier is a dumbass. While every other soldier in this film is reasonably normal, Strauss plays a hyper-puritanical, quasi-pacifist that is more out of place in this setting than a UFO would be. Bergen obviously plays the wise-to-the-world, provocative sex object with a keen mind, and, while she does overact quite a bit, she's not bad, nor bad looking.
They have to Stick Together(tm) despite their differences.

They cross the place-to-escape-from, where both are tested, Strauss is more of a complete dumbass, Bergen is .. not terrible, and eventually they get there, where the other soldiers kill a bunch of indians while Strauss looks for a moral of sorts.


Essentially it's a classic western pewpew the cowboys kill the bad indians except that PLOT TWIST both are bad. wow. Such innovation. Acting, costumes, sets, direction, camerawork, all are awful. The story is bland and boring, the action is ridiculous, i'm talkin' Kirk vs The Gorn ridiculous, and Bergen doesn't even get her tits out, which is a disgrace if you ask me, after titillating my 14yo fantasy with that movie poster. There is one indian lady getting her clothes ripped off at the very end but it's plot irrelevant.

And it's a film that has no cultural value, has aged badly, and doesn't even have the shock value it may once have had. Not after you've watched Bone Tomahawk.

My vote: a lame 5/10
 
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snoopy7548

Diamond Member
Jan 1, 2005
8,048
5,043
146
Nymphomaniac Vol. I (Director's Cut) - 8/10. I really liked it. Can't wait to watch Vol. II!

Definitely a movie for the whole family to enjoy.
 
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DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
i got both and thought they were nothing but failed porn.

Don't get me wrong, i like erotic cinema. But the only film i've seen that used explicit sex well was Baise Moi. There was no scene in Nympho 1/2 that could not have been made just as well without being graphic.
Note that, in some form of convoluted hypocrisy, none of the sex is actually real: https://www.vice.com/en/article/7b78dz/the-inner-workings-of-lars-von-triers-fake-sex-scenes
(sorry to have to link a Vice story, i know they are garbage)

And, you know, i'm not terribly a fan of LVT. I grew up with him being portrayed as this godlike film director, but i have made up my mind through the years and i have not found any films of his which merit that sort of praise. Kubrik yes, Kurosawa, but him, no. He was in business during the 80s when film critics were ready to jump on the bandwagon of anything that looked "artistic", and he's got this way of making every set look alien. Very ... nordic.

All these critics have been masturbating secretly for years, and can finally applaud pornography because now it's art. I'm sorry, that's hypocrisy. I prefer the populist good directors, rather than the art fart. I'll take Gladiator over Dogville any day.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,511
29,096
146
i got both and thought they were nothing but failed porn.

Don't get me wrong, i like erotic cinema. But the only film i've seen that used explicit sex well was Baise Moi. There was no scene in Nympho 1/2 that could not have been made just as well without being graphic.
Note that, in some form of convoluted hypocrisy, none of the sex is actually real: https://www.vice.com/en/article/7b78dz/the-inner-workings-of-lars-von-triers-fake-sex-scenes
(sorry to have to link a Vice story, i know they are garbage)

And, you know, i'm not terribly a fan of LVT. I grew up with him being portrayed as this godlike film director, but i have made up my mind through the years and i have not found any films of his which merit that sort of praise. Kubrik yes, Kurosawa, but him, no. He was in business during the 80s when film critics were ready to jump on the bandwagon of anything that looked "artistic", and he's got this way of making every set look alien. Very ... nordic.

All these critics have been masturbating secretly for years, and can finally applaud pornography because now it's art. I'm sorry, that's hypocrisy. I prefer the populist good directors, rather than the art fart. I'll take Gladiator over Dogville any day.

I still haven't seen Dogville but yeah, everything I've seen from LVT is just pretentious garbage. It's like watching anything from Brian DePalma, aka: which obvious classic film example-of-film-school am I going to rewrite, recreate nearly shot by shot, and call it my own?
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
Well DePalma does have some good films to his name, Bonfire Of Vanities, Phantom Of Paradise, Untouchables (say what you will, i love this movie) .. uh .. Scarface and Carlito's Way, i guess, i'm not so extatic about those but they are ok films.
Mission To Mars was sooo disappointing ..
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,511
29,096
146
I never liked Scarface. Just too cheesy for me. I did like Carlito's Way, forgot about that one.

Untouchables is what I consider a good bad movie. It's basically Sean Connery one-liners and the rest is throwaway, guilty pleasure. For one thing, I can't think of DeNiro being worse than he was in the Untouchables.
 

MrSquished

Lifer
Jan 14, 2013
21,004
19,442
136
What We Do In The Shadows - movie, Amazon Prime for $3. Really good New Zealand mockumentary on the lives of four vampire roommates in Wellington, New Zealand. It's hilarious. Was laughing or chuckling out loud quite a bit. Was recommended that plus the Hulu spin off show of the same name, so I'll be trying that on for size as well. Both the movie and Hulu series have excellent reviews.
 
Nov 20, 2009
10,043
2,573
136
What We Do In The Shadows - movie, Amazon Prime for $3. Really good New Zealand mockumentary on the lives of four vampire roommates in Wellington, New Zealand. It's hilarious. Was laughing or chuckling out loud quite a bit. Was recommended that plus the Hulu spin off show of the same name, so I'll be trying that on for size as well. Both the movie and Hulu series have excellent reviews.
I couldn't get through the movie, when I tried to watch it several months back. The wife is currently watching the TV series and she loves it.
 

MrSquished

Lifer
Jan 14, 2013
21,004
19,442
136
I couldn't get through the movie, when I tried to watch it several months back. The wife is currently watching the TV series and she loves it.

oh man. That's too bad. I thought the movie was fantastic. Most comedies make me groan at how bad they are.
 

CZroe

Lifer
Jun 24, 2001
24,195
856
126
I couldn't get through the movie, when I tried to watch it several months back. The wife is currently watching the TV series and she loves it.
A lot of the jokes can be pretty subtle but hilarious if you are looking for them. Not worth it if you aren't.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,511
29,096
146
What We Do In The Shadows - movie, Amazon Prime for $3. Really good New Zealand mockumentary on the lives of four vampire roommates in Wellington, New Zealand. It's hilarious. Was laughing or chuckling out loud quite a bit. Was recommended that plus the Hulu spin off show of the same name, so I'll be trying that on for size as well. Both the movie and Hulu series have excellent reviews.

I keep forgetting to get around to this. Love Jemaine Clement. I was going to watch it some years ago, when it was free on Prime, then they changed it to rental. Damn that $3! :D
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
It's All Gone Pete Tong - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388139

A silly story of a dj who goes deaf - the blame is pinned on the sex, drugs & RnR - but yet (WITH THE POWER OF LOVE) he manages to survive.

I have *some* experience of the club scene (and what comes in between) and while the djs are not as bad as they portray them in this film, it's not completely off the truth; the film wants us to believe that the protagonist is bad, because that's how he's gonna have his arc of redemption.
But, the in-your-face style of common language, out of focus situations, and the general shabbiness of the protagonist do not really endear him to out hearts. Nor do we really feel for this rich spoiled brat who, bohoo, cannot afford to be a millionaire anymore.
And then, the touchy-feely way that his redemption is handled makes me question, "who is the target audience here?". Because anyone who likes the second half of the film would have walked out before it started.
On top of this you got .. live interviews with actual djs. Weird, pushy hallucination scenes that would be well in Donnie Darko, but NOT in what tries to be a documentary.
And the whole thing isn't even interesting.

If you want to watch films about clubbing, this ain't it. 5/10

Seriously, A Night At The Roxbury (6.5/10) is a better clubbing film than this.
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
I watched Serpico - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070666/

Based on the real life story of Frank Serpico - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Serpico
Al Pacino stars as the titular character, a unusually honest cop in 1960s New York. The film was based on available records and interviews with Serpico, so it's pretty accurate.

Serpico is a honest cop; he doesn't like that most of his colleagues take either bribes, or steal money from gangsters. When he is transferred to the plainclothes department, he sees such corruption in the force that he starts working against it, which leads him to open hostility of everyone in the force. Now a lone wolf, who can trust nobody, he needs to get proof of the crime high up in the government before "something happens to him".

Pacino really nails this role. Serpico is scared, paranoid, but also driven by his honor, and most of the time he's in over his head.
The supporting characters are an interesting depiction of the time, if a bit cartoonish.
There is a weird subplot about him having a love interest - Barbara Eda-Yung, absolutely gorgeous and practically disappeared after this film - but midway through the film, she has a brief "i am leaving now" scene and BAM! gone.

The sets are soooo cool. Most are real-life NYC locations, and you get a chance to see the city the way it was before some of us were born.

It's a good movie, i won't lie. It's fairly limited in scope, but what it does, it does well. I would recommend it foir a trip down memory lane, and man, that girl, that girl.

My vote: 7.5/10
 

JEDI

Lifer
Sep 25, 2001
30,160
3,300
126
Nymphomaniac Vol. I (Director's Cut) - 8/10. I really liked it. Can't wait to watch Vol. II!

Definitely a movie for the whole family to enjoy.
if you thought she took it up the ass too easily in the graphic (as in see both holes) double penetration scene, it's because it's fake.
the director superimposed her face onto the porn star doing the actual dp.
 
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JEDI

Lifer
Sep 25, 2001
30,160
3,300
126
Loved season 1. Can't wait to start up S2 of the boys!
I got the lady who plays the VP of Vought, Elizabeth Shue (Karate Kid, Back to the Future movies), mixed up with Elizabeth Berkley (DeGrassi High school, Showgirls).

i was wondering how a b-movie girl got such a great lead role.
Now i know... she didnt
 
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UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
16,068
7,380
146
We just finished watching the last episode of season 2 of 'The Boys'.

It had quite a few twists, that all seemed to work out all the characters (for once), so I was concerned about them ending the series after only two seasons (it wouldn't be the first show I liked to do that). However, thankfully the twists lasted until the end, and it finished with plenty to think about.

I'm so glad 'The Boys' 2nd season was just as good / maybe even better than the 1st season. It's currently one of my favorite shows to watch that's available on any network/streaming service. Just absolute great casting and writing. Now if I can just understand what Karl Urban is saying with his heavy accent. Thankfully, his favorite insult for everyone is always very easy to understand. ;)
 
Nov 20, 2009
10,043
2,573
136
So, I finally got the wife to start watching Stranger Things. It was the first thing I watched after getting Netflix last November. About 15 minutes in the Amazon FireTV stick decides to down-rez to something inhumanly low and she hunts me down and demands I fix it. It took 15 minutes to get her hooked. She watched season in two days. Now she's started season 2. I kept telling her it was like The Goonies meet Poltergeist.
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,135
2,445
126
The Outpost is on Netflix now. It's a fairly gritty and realistic movie about an attack on an outpost in Afghanistan. I'd give it an 8 out of 10.

Honestly, this movie deserved a wide release in theaters, but 2020 happened instead.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,511
29,096
146
I got the lady who plays the VP of Vought, Elizabeth Shue (Karate Kid, Back to the Future movies), mixed up with Elizabeth Berkley (DeGrassi High school, Showgirls).

i was wondering how a b-movie girl got such a great lead role.
Now i know... she didnt

That's Lea Thompson in the BttF movies. ...but I understand, white girls must all look the same to you, huh?
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,135
2,445
126
I also watched Terminator: Dark Fate on Hulu this weekend. I'll give it a 5/10. It's not as good as Terminator 2, even though it tries REALLY hard to be that same movie.

I also didn't appreciate how they tried to make the US Border Patrol look evil. Hey Hollywood: Please don't inject politics into action films, I don't want to see it.
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
Hey, i watched Terminator: Dark Fate - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6450804/

and you know, as far as T films go, it wasn't totally trash. Some of the action was nice, some was too much. The sentimentalisms are out of place and can go. The settings were pretty decent, and the acting was all around ok.
I still can't understand why they need to make the T out of some sort of indestructible material though. You're the writer, just dont write scenes where the T could get destroyed. Sheesh, in 30 years of storyline time, they'll be killing Ts with guns. Have we developed some sort of antimatter cannon in 30 years of living in the rubble?
Anyway, decent VHS film. 6/10
 

Homerboy

Lifer
Mar 1, 2000
30,856
4,974
126
The Good Lord Bird - no rating yet (only 2 episodes in)

I've been really enjoying this adaptation by Ethan Hawke. It's only two episodes in thus far, but it's been quite entertaining. His (Ethan Hawke's character COMPLETELY steals every scene he's in and he plays the role incredibly well (way over the top as the character is supposed to be). The humor is very solid. The seriousness is very well done too. It's the first show in a long time (that you can't binge) that I very much look forward to the next episode's release.

Official Trailer:
 
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