NEW: List some movies you've watched recently. Theatre, rental, TV... and give a */10

[DigDog]

I know i'm late to the party, but i'm watching Yellowstone.

Kevin Costner plays the part he was born to play, but GODDAMN there are so many side characters.
Ep1 at the end of nearly 2 hours, the Dalton ranch boys go to the indian land to rustle the cattle that had previously been theirs, but since it had wandered onto indian land, it got seized by the indians; and guy N.14 shoots and kills guy N.24, and then guy N.12 kills guy N.14.

Don't they understand that at this point these guys are just Faceless Goons? I damn had to go back nearly watch the whole thing again just to understand why the hell should i care.

 

[DigDog]

lighting reviews;

Yellowstone - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4236770/reference/

i watched 5 episodes of S01, 2 episodes of S02, and 1 of S03 and i'm done. I imagine that, if you watched this over the years, as it came out 1 episode a week, you would probably love it, but it's not a show you can binge, because it highlights that it's got less storyline and more of the filler, with secondary character being given way too much importance. The main storyline is not terribly interesting either.

Presumed Innocent - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17677860/reference/

oh hell naw. Twelve hours for a single trial? Nah bruh.
I'm also strongly put off by the washed out colors of the photography. I can't understand why this is considered acceptable today, to film everything kind-of-gray, but i've seen too many shows that use this style to think it's just a mistake. (but it is a mistake)

Kafka - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27195940/reference/

will defo be watching more of this, but only had a brief superficial peek because it's in german with subtitles and i was too tired to give it the proper attention. From what little i saw, it looks great.

 

[DigDog]

holy fuck what is it with these three hour films.

Alfred Hitchcock: "The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder. "

and this is only part 1 of 4.

Horizon: An American Saga - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17505010/reference/

The more i watched, the worse it got.
Basically you got a 3h long Kevin Kostner film where the first hour or so the protagonist isn't even in the film, and pretty much all the events of the first hour are introductory and only 1 character actually matters, because all the others are killed in the first hour. Otherwise, it's a straight western, but closer to a documentary than an actual film, as the only discernible plot is "whelp, here's a bunch of west settlers, and they doin' stuff, with injuns and prostitutes and outlaws n' stuff".

Imagine you take Star Wars. Yes THAT star wars.
And you add the Moff Tarkin subplot. Then you add the StormTroopers training camp subplot. The Garbage Compressor subplot. The X-Wing repair bay mechanics subplot. The Young Yoda dream sequence. The Ben & Beru family subplot. The every single fucking character in the show gets a subplot subplot. Frankly, i think we're in Heaven's Gate territory here, it's waaaaaaaaaaay too long and there is absolutely no reason why it needs to be, because there is no. story. that i know i am supposed to follow.

Production wise, it's .. well, it's expensive, for sure; it's got good stuff, but it's also got an absolutely horrendous change in photography just about the part where Kostner shows up, so much that it looks like two different films stitched together.
There's a *very* forced love interest in prostitute Marigold, there's a on-the-nose trope of the violent young indian warrior clashing with the wiser indian tribe chief (who only wants peace with the white man, ofc), there's a woman whose husband is killed, and after she is rescued by the cavalry, after two days, while on the side of a river, and then in a tent with a washbasin next to her, still hasn't washer her face, there is an absolutely stunning woman called Wase Chief that plays one of the indian girls, there's NINETY-THREE named actors in the credits page (plus another uncredited 7 for a nice whole round 'hunner), so i guess if you are really, really starved for a western and you've run down your copy of Dances With Wolves, then yeah maybe this will fix you, but otherwise it's a just-barely-tolerable western that has absolutely no idea how to construct a film. Really, Heaven's Gate makes more sense than this.

My vote: 5/10 (from a maybe 6.5/10 at the beginning)

 

[NuclearNed]

lighting reviews;

Yellowstone - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4236770/reference/

i watched 5 episodes of S01, 2 episodes of S02, and 1 of S03 and i'm done. I imagine that, if you watched this over the years, as it came out 1 episode a week, you would probably love it, but it's not a show you can binge, because it highlights that it's got less storyline and more of the filler, with secondary character being given way too much importance. The main storyline is not terribly interesting either.

Presumed Innocent - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17677860/reference/

oh hell naw. Twelve hours for a single trial? Nah bruh.
I'm also strongly put off by the washed out colors of the photography. I can't understand why this is considered acceptable today, to film everything kind-of-gray, but i've seen too many shows that use this style to think it's just a mistake. (but it is a mistake)

Kafka - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27195940/reference/

will defo be watching more of this, but only had a brief superficial peek because it's in german with subtitles and i was too tired to give it the proper attention. From what little i saw, it looks great.

I neither hate nor love Yellowstone, but I think it was season 3 that I thought was the high mark. I actually sort of enjoyed it.

That said, you might enjoy 1883. It's a Yellowstone origin story, and it's pretty good. It doesn't hurt that it's really not much like Yellowstone at all.

 

[soulcougher73]

I neither hate nor love Yellowstone, but I think it was season 3 that I thought was the high mark. I actually sort of enjoyed it.

That said, you might enjoy 1883. It's a Yellowstone origin story, and it's pretty good. It doesn't hurt that it's really not much like Yellowstone at all.

1883 was pretty good. I’m bummed Yellowstone won’t have a real ending.

 

[DigDog]

That said, you might enjoy 1883.

Done & reviewed. It was definitively better than Horizon, even though it follows a similar "eeeeeveryone gets a subplot" formula.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Longing (2024) - IMDb

Longing (2024) Reference View

www.imdb.com

It's a drama. Felt like a long drama. Things just kept happening and new stuff got revealed, pulling me back in just when I thought it was going to end. At the end of the credits roll, I felt kinda duped. Not sure if politics was involved in the making of this movie.

Spoiler

Is this movie an attempt to score some points for Israel? Hard to say but I was not pleased to see that it was an Israeli production

Moving on to the performances, they were good. Richard Gere's still got it. Diane Kruger, oh wow. She's got a pretty naughty scene in the movie. I wonder how much fun she had making it. She is that type. The type who would laugh her ass off while doing something like that.

The score depends on what type of movies you are into. If you can't stand drama, it will easily be a 4/10 for you. Or even lower. For me it was 6.5/10 because I could relate to an old guy trying to keep his son's memory alive, no matter what it took.

 

[Dr. Detroit]

Jake Paul vs Mike Perry fight - (replacement for Iron Mike Tyson)

How the F did this amateur crap make it to 6-rounds with Jake weighing 30lbs more than Perry. And no I didn't pay for this crap...

 

[DigDog]

Jake Paul vs Mike Perry fight - (replacement for Iron Mike Tyson)

How the F did this amateur crap make it to 6-rounds with Jake weighing 30lbs more than Perry. And no I didn't pay for this crap...

a bit more detail, for those of us who haven't actually seen it ?

 

[DigDog]

i watched a bunch of older stuff

The Terminator - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/reference/

extended edition apparently, but i couldn't tell as it seemed to be the exact same version i've watched every time prior.
Fantastic film, one thing that always strikes me about T1 is how fast paced it is. The introduction leads into both T and Kyle Reese stalking Sarah Connor, into the Technoir scene, then car chase into the police station, which is almost "the quiet bit" despite the fact that T crashes the party and murders everyone, then the motel scene, exposition, truck chase into the factory, and BAM you're at the conclusion.

9/10 - i wouldn't hate T2 so much if this film never existed.

and

The Blues Brothers - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080455/reference/

because i can't live without this film. According to my record, this is the 160th time i watch it. That's not a typo, that one hundred and sixty.
Sadly it was the extended version, that adds minor snippets that do nothing to help the story (because the story doesnt need help) and just make it longer. The original cut was better.

10/10 - i mean, this film made me spend years dressed as Elwood ..

i also watched all of Rick & Morty Seasons 1 - 2, and the quality of the scripts is SO MUCH better. S03 is where they shifted to a more "action" style, and while the scripts are still stellar, and the long story arcs are welcome, it prefaces the inevitable fall from grace that R&M will have years later.

S01 & S02: 10/10 - not only it's the best television you can get, but it also gets there with a new, creative and *very* irreverent approach to writing.

 

[Dr. Detroit]

a bit more detail, for those of us who haven't actually seen it ?

 

[KLin]

Three days of the Condor, Robert Redford spy movie made in 1975.

Die drei Tage des Condor (1975) ⭐ 7.4 | Crime, Mystery, Thriller

1h 57m | 16

www.imdb.com

Call it high 7s for me.

 

[KLin]

Parallax View is good as well. Movie about political assassination and what not.

Mid 7s

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071970/

 

[IBMJunkman]

Saw it in the theaters on initial release. Beekeeper with Jason Statham. 8.5/10.

Love a good revenge/get even movie. My only complaint is, as a gun owner, I have not seen that handguns are that easy to disassemble.

 

[DigDog]

i watched

Blow Out - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082085/reference/

Brian de Palma's 1981 thriller starring John Travolta. This was to be his last decent film, after which he did Staying Alive (the SNF sequel, 4.8/10 on IMDb), Two Of A Kind 4.7/10, Perfect 4.7/10, etc a lof ot 4.x/10 shit, until 1994's Pulf Fiction revival.

Travolta stars as Jack, a easy going guy living in the city, working as a foley artist, e.g. someone who makes background sounds for films. At the start of the film there is a subplot where Jack is looking to redo some wind noises and, more importantly, a scream, for cheesy horror film Co-ed Frenzy, that he is working on.
He goes to the park at night to pickup some wind noise, and he sees a car breaching the railing of a bridge and falling into the pond; he jumps in heroically and rescues love-interest bimbo Sally (played by a quite tasty Nancy Allen).
Jack briefly gives his deposition to the cops, then goes home to listen to his tapes, and finds that he has recorded a gunshot, showing that the car's tire did not BLOW OUT (End Credits) but was actually shot out.
it's interesting to note at this point that the film is based on an italian film with a similar plot, directed by M. Antonioni, wherein they instead have a film negative as the proof, ergo the title for the italian one is Blow Up (the process of turning a film negative into a normal-size photograph).
Anyway, Jack is interested both in the mystery of the shot, and also in the tiddies of Sally. As he does a bit of investigating, we discover that he was previously involved with the police, specifically sting operations, and likely involving the same bad guy.
Now, the villain of the story is not The Bad Guy, but rather a killer working for the bad guy, played by John Lithgow. In his effort to clean up the remaining traces of the coverup, he kills Sally, but not fast enough, and Jack catches up to him and kills him in a rage.

.. which is probably why the film didn't do terribly well.
The main theme is that Jack is The Hero(tm). He rescues a princess which is his Love Interest, and to Get The Girl he has to Discover The Mystery and Defeat The Villain.
The film sets this up quite clearly, but then as the final struggle between Hero, Princess and Villain happens .. the Princess dies?? Yeah and as a further kick in the face, Jack winds up using the actual death scream of Sally for his subplot of scoring Co-ed Frenzy.
This is absolutely not what we want, of your audience, the ones you have captured are those who invest themselves into the wants of the protagonist, which are clearly Defeat The Villain and Get The Girl, which de Palma for whatever reasons decided not to do.

The film did generate a lot of praise from film critics, and you can clearly see de Palma interesting use of camera work and of background colors, but the critic calling it an art film, and word of mouth saying how the film ends badly, was a terrible combination which resulted in a mediocre performance and a hit to the career of John Travolta, who having just recently broken through with Saturday Night Fever and Grease, was seen as a pretty-face dancer who could not act in anything but juvenile roles.

.. idk, i find the ending really disappointing. It's not that i don't like bleak endings, i mean ... i don't, but that's beside the point. It's that the film really builds up to a happy conclusion, and then kicks you in the nuts.


Still, decent film, well done, i'm gonna need to consider the historical significance of this film and so i say : 7/10

 

[Charmonium]

The Italian Job - 2003 - 8/10

I have to admit I did FF over some of it but did watch at least 90%. Charlize Theron must have been in her late 20's when that was filmed but she looks even younger. IDK if she had work done but she looks a lot different to me now. Not older, just different. Of course I've always had problems with faces and I had to look up the cast to be sure it was her.

Donald Sutherland had a minor role but is still a pivotal character in the story. Two very imaginative heists I thought.

 

[DigDog]

for unexplained reasons i watched that pile of shit which is

Mission To Mars - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183523/reference/

oh wait, i know the reasons; because it's a Brian DePalma film. Y'know, the genius who did Phantom of Paradise? and The Untouchables?

Ok so.

Do you remember The Suicide Squad? Yeah THE suicide squad, the actually-watchable second one. So in that film they play against a trope, which is, they introduce what we think is the protagonist "suicide squad" ... and then wipe them out. And then show us THE REAL suicide squad.
Ok so in M2M the first scene is this long-ass barbecue party scene, slow and boring - and the casting is a bunch of "everyone looks like everyone else", aside from Don Cheadle they got Gary Sinise, Jerry OConnel, Tim Robbins, etc and it's kinda shit, the main plot point here is that this group of 8 people will split in two, with group 1 going to Mars and group 2 *not* going to mars. Kinda redundant if you ask me, but we get it, we need to show that there is some resentment because hey, going to Mars is something every astronaut wants.

So we put up with the slow introductory scene, and then the group of protagonists goes to Mars, and THEY DIE. And not even, say, like in a splatter-horror film, where you need more characters because each one can give you a gruesome death scene, nooo no, they all get sucked into a big giant windstorm and they die.

Cue protagonist group 2, and basically we've thrown away the last 45min of film for no reason.

Now group 2 is about to arrive to Mars, and there is a stupid critical-mission-failure scene where their ship exploads and they do a complicated space-walk to save themselves, and while the scene is not terrible in itself .. it's just filler. We do not care for these character to any extent where the fact that Tim Robbins has to commit suicide, also because we just saw another 4 guys dead, so .. why is this scene here?

Now, once they dock with the rescue module and they magically find themselves on Mars, the group of 3 left start investigating what has happened. Don Cheadle turns out is still alive, there's a scene full of tension .. but again it's just badly placed and clashes against the tone. And really, Gary Sinise's stupid grin doesn't help.

So with *very little* investigation they find out that the giant alien spaceface killed the other group of astronauts because it mistook the radar ping for a failed instruction code (wow such advanced tech) and because of this KILLED THE ASTRONAUTS. Sinise even says "it's like an alarm". Really? Your garage alarm will shoot someone if they use the wrong garage door fob?
So the guys figure out what they think the code is, and the giant face-door opens and then they are in a room full of CGI and then Sinise goes into spaaaaaaaaace with the aliens the end.

5/10 i mean wow, what a pile of nonsense, slow scenes, mediocre acting, tone clashing, badly paced, laughably bad piece of shit.

 

[sdifox]

for unexplained reasons i watched that pile of shit which is

Mission To Mars - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183523/reference/

oh wait, i know the reasons; because it's a Brian DePalma film. Y'know, the genius who did Phantom of Paradise? and The Untouchables?

Ok so.

Do you remember The Suicide Squad? Yeah THE suicide squad, the actually-watchable second one. So in that film they play against a trope, which is the introduce what we think is the protagonist "suicide squad", and then wipe them out. And then show us THE REAL suicide squad.
Ok so in M2M the first scene is this long-ass barbecue party scene, slow and boring - and the casting is a bunch of "everyone looks like everyone else", aside from Don Cheadle they got Gary Sinise, Jerry OConnel, Tim Robbins, etc and it's kinda shit, the main plot point here is that this group of 8 people will split in two, with group 1 going to Mars and group 2 *not* going to mars. Kinda redundant if you ask me, but we get it, we need to show that there is some resentment because hey, going to Mars is something every astronaut wants.

So we put up with the slow introductory scene, and then the group of protagonists goes to Mars, and THEY DIE. And not even, say, like in a splatter-horror film, where you need more characters because each one can give you a gruesome death scene, nooo no, they all get sucked into a big giant windstorm and they die.

Cue protagonist group 2, and basically we've thrown away the last 45min of film for no reason.

Now group 2 is about to arrive to Mars, and there is a stupid critical-mission-failure scene where their ship exploads and they do a complicated space-walk to save themselves, and while the scene is not terrible in itself .. it's just filler. We do not care for these character to any extent where the fact that Tim Robbins has to commit suicide, also because we just saw another 4 guys dead, so .. why is this scene here?

Now, once they dock with the rescue module and they magically find themselves on Mars, the group of 3 left start investigating what has happened. Don Cheadle turns out is still alive, there's a scene full of tension .. but again it's just badly placed and clashes against the tone. And really, Gary Sinise's stupid grin doesn't help.

So with *very little* investigation they find out that the giant alien spaceface killed the other group of astronauts because it mistook the radar ping for a failed instruction code (wow such advanced tech) and because of this KILLED THE ASTRONAUTS. Sinise even says "it's like an alarm". Really? Your garage alarm will shoot someone if they use the wrong garage door fob?
So the guys figure out what they think the code is, and the giant face-door opens and then they are in a room full of CGI and then Sinise goes into spaaaaaaaaace with the aliens the end.

5/10 i mean wow, what a pile of nonsense, slow scenes, mediocre acting, tone clashing, badly paced, laughably bad piece of ship.

Backup astronauts are a real thing.

 

[stargazr]

i watched

Blow Out - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082085/reference/

Brian de Palma's 1981 thriller starring John Travolta. This was to be his last decent film, after which he did Staying Alive (the SNF sequel, 4.8/10 on IMDb), Two Of A Kind 4.7/10, Perfect 4.7/10, etc a lof ot 4.x/10 shit, until 1994's Pulf Fiction revival.

Travolta stars as Jack, a easy going guy living in the city, working as a foley artist, e.g. someone who makes background sounds for films. At the start of the film there is a subplot where Jack is looking to redo some wind noises and, more importantly, a scream, for cheesy horror film Co-ed Frenzy, that he is working on.
He goes to the park at night to pickup some wind noise, and he sees a car breaching the railing of a bridge and falling into the pond; he jumps in heroically and rescues love-interest bimbo Sally (played by a quite tasty Nancy Allen).
Jack briefly gives his deposition to the cops, then goes home to listen to his tapes, and finds that he has recorded a gunshot, showing that the car's tire did not BLOW OUT (End Credits) but was actually shot out.
it's interesting to note at this point that the film is based on an italian film with a similar plot, directed by M. Antonioni, wherein they instead have a film negative as the proof, ergo the title for the italian one is Blow Up (the process of turning a film negative into a normal-size photograph).
Anyway, Jack is interested both in the mystery of the shot, and also in the tiddies of Sally. As he does a bit of investigating, we discover that he was previously involved with the police, specifically sting operations, and likely involving the same bad guy.
Now, the villain of the story is not The Bad Guy, but rather a killer working for the bad guy, played by John Lithgow. In his effort to clean up the remaining traces of the coverup, he kills Sally, but not fast enough, and Jack catches up to him and kills him in a rage.

.. which is probably why the film didn't do terribly well.
The main theme is that Jack is The Hero(tm). He rescues a princess which is his Love Interest, and to Get The Girl he has to Discover The Mystery and Defeat The Villain.
The film sets this up quite clearly, but then as the final struggle between Hero, Princess and Villain happens .. the Princess dies?? Yeah and as a further kick in the face, Jack winds up using the actual death scream of Sally for his subplot of scoring Co-ed Frenzy.
This is absolutely not what we want, of your audience, the ones you have captured are those who invest themselves into the wants of the protagonist, which are clearly Defeat The Villain and Get The Girl, which de Palma for whatever reasons decided not to do.

The film did generate a lot of praise from film critics, and you can clearly see de Palma interesting use of camera work and of background colors, but the critic calling it an art film, and word of mouth saying how the film ends badly, was a terrible combination which resulted in a mediocre performance and a hit to the career of John Travolta, who hav`ing just recently broken through with Saturday Night Fever and Grease, was seen as a pretty-face dancer who could not act in anything but juvenile roles.

.. idk, i find the ending really disappointing. It's not that i don't like bleak endings, i mean ... i don't, but that's beside the point. It's that the film really builds up to a happy conclusion, and then kicks you in the nuts.


Still, decent film, well done, i'm gonna need to consider the historical significance of this film and so i say : 7/10

This is one of those older movies I love to go back and watch again every now and then in spite of the disappointing ending. Pretty good for a De Palma film.

 

[DigDog]

Backup astronauts are a real thing.

Yes. That doesn't mean it makes for good film.

Here is how this script could have been improved.

Skip the barbecue scene alltogether. You get 1 clear croup of protagonists who are being summoned and told "there's been a disaster on Mars; crew X got killed by we don't know what, here is what little info we have".
Land on Mars. Completely omit the space-walk scene; there is too little time for the audience to get invested in Robbins' character to make the death meaningful. Likewise there's too little time to get familiar with the wife's character to share her grief.
Extend the process of figuring out what went wrong. Add a scene where a character dies to replace the space-walk. Conclude with finding footage of the head destroying the previous crew - this COULD be replaced because the whole concept of the head destroying "intruders" is fucking stupid, but let's stick with dePalma's original idea - which leads into them finding that Don Cheadle has survived and locating him.
Continue with the ending as before.

Still not great, but likely not quite as shit as this version.

 

[DigDog]

i also watched

Looking For Mr Goodbar - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076327/reference/

because i love Tuesday Weld.
Good god this was absolutely awful.

The story is quite bland; there is sister 1, which thinks her life suxx and then sister 2 (Weld) arrives, sister 1 thinks sister 2 has an awesome party life, but actually she lives in the abuse of short term meaningless relationship with toxic men and can only cope with drugs and alcohol. Eventually one of these lovers just up'n' kills sister 2 because FILM OVER.
The cinematography is horrible, grainy, uneven, dark, the sets & locations are boring, the acting is mediocre (there's a very young Richard Gere), essentially you got a drama that doesn't have a hook to make it into a good story.

5/10

 

[mikeymikec]

The Italian Job - 2003 - 8/10

I have to admit I did FF over some of it

I would have to be bored out of my mind yet morbidly curious to know the conclusion to do this.

I even watched the first Percy Jackson movie without fast-forwarding (that was absolutely a "I'm only continuing to watch out of morbid curiosity" movie)!

 

[igor_kavinski]

I would have to be bored out of my mind yet morbidly curious to know the conclusion to do this.

I don't remember it being a bad movie.

 

[gorobei]

Shoresy season3
recaptures the underdog feel of season1 with a strong overarching theme on character growth.
verbal comedy isnt quite as strong as past peak moments but doesnt really matter as this seems to be a drama focused season. there is some drifting unfocused mixing in of personal life of the characters but nothing that really pays off well. it feels like a lot got left on the cutting room floor or was trimmed out during the scriptwriting.

the ending is a bit of a cliffhanger.
9/10

 

[Demon_Seed]

I watched Alexander (2004).

The movie has some beautiful scenery and landscape shots. And that's the only thing I enjoyed.

Chronologically, the movie is all over the place and has no flow. Frustrating wondering which random part of his life will be shown next. It's also too long and has too many boring monologue parts.

6/10