Last Movie You Saw, Name & Review Movie • Page 181

Afire (2023) - look at this struggling artist afraid to be of the world. Too bad, the world has other plans.

Dune (1984) - Watched this as a refresher.

Dune: Part Two (2024): Act 1 had me hooked, the visual design, the sounds, exciting set piece skirmishes, Paul & Jessica navigating their way into Fremen culture. I like the added layer of a reglious divide in the fremen, that they werent one homogeneous culture.

Act 2: Still hooked! The spectacle builds up, we get worms, Feyd-Rautha’s birthday was awesome. The Bene Gesserit Under The Skin scene is everything I want a cinematic interpretation to be, fantastic use of visual storytelling! This approach has been carrying the film so far

As a result the dialogue and politics of the book have been stripped back. The spice guild is gone, the menats are out, ecology isn't mentioned, no extended inner monologues of characters mulling over their plots. Streamlining the clunky mess of its 1984 counterpart.

Act 3: I had doubts about Timothée Chalamet as Paul, he nails being Zendaya's boyfriend, I didn't think he would work as a charismatic warrior leader. Changing the character to express a darker side as he struggles with his role was an excellent addition and pulled the character together in further with the religious plots and inline with Chalamets range. An improvement on the books which really waited till Messiah to retcon the idea that actually charismatic all powerful leaders aren't super sweet.

Why it fails to stick the landing: Visually the spectacle stops building, ironing out of the politics flattened the tension and the dialogue starts panicking to explain what's happening.

Instead of climax being a rehash of the battle from Part One the 3rd act could have gone full on surreal dream mode after Paul drinks the worm juice and becomes an omniscient god. Viewing it through the lense of his visions as he tries to navigate through alternate timelines to the path he thinks is best. This is what Denis did so compellingly with Enemy and Arrival, building tension and mystery with cinematic surrealism. It's a shame we didn't get to see it here.

 

The Beekeeper - 2/10 genuinely baffled by some of the even muted praise I've seen for this one, I go found this pretty repugnant on almost every level.

 

Watched Paul Blart for the first time last night. Should I post my full review?

 

please

 

Yes please

 

Paul Blart: Mall Blart

 

Mall Blart Pall Cop

 

Thank you.

 

The Beekeeper rules.

 

My first question about Paul Blart is… who is that movie for? I really thought it was for kids, but it’s not. Yet it’s still PG!

 

(re: paul blart)

 

ACAB Dosent include Paul

 

Yeah it does

 

People who think Sandler is a bit too weird I assume

 

A Bucket of Blood (1959) - 8.5/10
This was so much better than I ever anticipated. One of the great "Guy Who Desperately Wants to Impress a Club of Idiots And Become Their King" films, a'la (strangely enough) Saltburn (but obviously better). Just really well-written and executed evergreen satire that is genuinely funny, knows exactly what it is, and gets you there in 67 minutes without exceeding its own reach. Dick Miller was a star. I wish we had more young everyman character actors these days.

Deathstalker - 6.5/10
A morally bankrupt Corman produced softcore porno masquerading as a sword and sorcery film, complete with witches, imps, pigmen, and a whole lot of violence. Excluding something like Heavy Metal, I don't think I've ever seen high fantasy brought to life without an ounce of irony like this before. It's a shameless collection of breasts and loincloths and swordfights and magic spells specifically created in a lab for 14-year-old boys, and if you're able to tap into that mindset, it's a pretty good time.

Underwater - 5.5/10
Revisited this as part of my Abyss-adjacent aliensploitation run because, despite thinking it could have been better, I remembered it fondly for its Lovecraftian reveal and brisk pace. Unfortunately, it hovers somewhere between functional and uninspired. It's a polished attempt at DeepStar Six with more forced comedic relief via the disgraced TJ Miller and some Cloverfield-style creature work. Kristen Stewart offers a very strong lead performance and the final creature still feels uniquely haunting, but even as I write this and question why my score is so low -- the movie is, after all, easily watchable -- it simply feels inconsequential as you're watching it. A fun, been-there-done-that premise that is stylishly executed but lacking any real emotional punch or identity.

Rolling Thunder - 9/10
So glad I finally watched this, even if it was a challenge. The first half is some of the bleakest cinema I've ever seen; I don't think another film has triggered my anxiety quite like this one. Once we get past the brutality of that inciting incident, the film becomes less of a thriller with dramatic moments and more of a drama with thrilling moments. A blunt and violent revenge film about a man that goes through hell twice and a man who loses everything twice. Violence is all he's left with, and while we root for him as the film's protagonist, nothing about his quest for vengeance feels good. Your mileage may very with the racial implications of the 60s and 70s. The films' finale, supposedly recreated by Tarantino for his upcoming final film, feels abrupt and iconic. Between Schrader's relentless screenplay and a handful of very strong performances, Rolling Thunder still feels provacative and unforgettable.

 

I just sold Deathstalker on VHS

 

Grabbers - 7.5/10
This was so fun! Genuinely funny and charming with well-written characters, even if the romance moves a little quickly. As an Irish horror-comedy creature feature, it knows exactly what you want and doesn't take long to deliver, complete with a wonderful Aliens homage in the third act. Would be a great hangout movie.

Scary Movie (1991) - 7.5/10
Not to be confused with the Wayans Brothers' parody. Unsure about some of the execution throughout -- it's goofy for sure -- but it also pulls of the "accidental slasher" premise I've long thought about until 2022's Bodies Bodies Bodies. And beyond some of the cringier moments (intentional or otherwise), there's also some good humor, costumes, and set pieces. The laughing guy with the beard is so funny. Hard to dislike any movie set in a haunted house, especially one with this low of a budget.

 

Decided to watch my last Tom McCarthy that I haven’t seen, The Station Agent, and it was like the platonic ideal of a 00s Sundance Indie movie. Excellent performances from the lead trio. Slyly funny and poignant. And the really nice touch was allowing for so many moments of quiet and silence in a movie about a loner. Really well-done

 

Stopmotion - 8/10
A solid psychological horror film that threatens to become a great body horror film as it goes on, largely due to its completely unique and grotesque visual effects. Some of the biggest gross-out scenes this side of a Saw film; director Robert Morgan appears to have some Cronenberg in him. Not all of the threads come together, but that's largely to be expected in films about losing your sanity. In fact, much of Stopmotion echoes 2021's equally ambitious and effective Censor. With great performances to boot, Stopmotion feels destined to find its audience and likely become a cult favorite, even if it may polarize horror fans when it hits Shudder in May.

 

Ricky Stanicky 2.5/5

a movie made for 17 year olds but doesn’t feel as good as the comedies from my teen years, though I’m sure nostalgia plays a huge part. still, had some pretty funny bits, but comedies about dudes with zero redeeming qualities tend to wear out their welcome pretty quickly

 

Drive-Away Dolls (2024) - Lesbian comedies having a moment huh. Pretty funny, good buddy chemistry, didn't find the romance compelling. Plot resolution was underwhelming, going for cheesy came off lazy.

Breaker Morant (1980) - I was discussing Zone of Interest with a friend and we ended up chatting about this. I'd watched in high school but couldn't recall much. Not only did it nail the court drama, it attacks empires and their wars, delveing deeper into the conditions they construct to turn ordinary men into murderers for their cause. It doesnt let those men off the hook ever pretending they are innocent, just disgust for the owners putting down the dogs they breed for war.

Tokyo Story (1953) - Family.

 

Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV - 4/10
It's not that there's any doubt Nickelodeon fostered an extremely dangerous work environment for its child stars, or that documentaries exposing these kind of environments or behaviors aren't vital, because they absolutely can be. It's that Quiet on Set is so obviously stylized and designed to commodify these allegations in the current culture that makes it feel so...off. Many victims are spoken for. Drake Bell's interviewed is teased to keep audiences watching (while very quickly glossing his own allegations). Dan Schneider's misconduct as a producer, while just as worthy of its own story, is somehow equated with two pedophiles on his set (along with a third that gets less than two minutes of discussion on screen). As a whole, Quiet on Set feels incoherent and tabloid-y, a quick buck made on the interest of many in "the dark side of kids TV" that very clearly puts the perceived entertainment value of abuse allegations over the moral obligation to offer non-stylized evidence and information to its audience. Put simply, anyone who actually cares about a light being shown on abuse in the industry deserves a more thoughtful documentary than this, and so do the victims.

 

The Fly (1958) - 7.5/10
I expected this to be black and white for some reason, but I'm not upset about it being in color. (Apparently the sequels are in black and white.) This is quite good, and a completely different story than Cronenberg's 1986 reimagination. There's obviously less body horror and focus on the transformation, but the film's emotional core is strong, and seeing a well-intentioned man and husband transformed into a monster bent on destroying himself with his wife's aid is pretty devastating. Any minor issues come from the way the story is structured (we know too much about the ending featured at the beginning of the film, so we feel less invested getting there), but the effects work and performances are all very strong here. I don't know if it's completely unique, per se, but it certainly feels like a much better executed version of other B-movie creature features of the period.

 

I've dragged my feet on this one given how much I enjoy the genre. What creature-feature stuff have you seen/liked?

 

Too many to list given the number classics over several decades (I'm sure I could pull up a list of my favorites if you're looking for recs lol) but in terms of films from the era? The Blob, Creature From the Black Lagoon (along with most of the Universal classics and their sequels), and The Birds all come to mind. This is definitely closes to The Blob out of those though, just tonally