What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

Team America: World Police
I've been meaning to see this for a long time, and since I really love South Park I had kind of high expectations for it. Of course the movie is 10 years old now, so many the issues it's satirizing feel kind of dated, but a lot of it is still relevant today. That being said though, this really wasn't all that good. Mediocre at best. No doubt the best part was the opening scene in which the Team America stops terrorists from trying to blow up Paris by blowing up Paris. Just brilliant. And who can forget THIS classic theme song?



I've also been re-watching some stuff recently. First, my friend and I watched Top Gun the other night while we were drinking. It's just an amazingly fun and cheesy movie, probably everyone on earth has seen it already so no need for me to ramble about it. Double feature with Rocky IV would've been a blast, but hey, you can't get everything. I also started marathoning (is that a real word?) the Godfather movies, which I've last seen about a decade ago, when I first watched them. It's just classic stuff, what can I say. Each scene is more memorable than the last, and especially the second one has some intense stuff which really stuck with me from seeing it at a relatively early age. Everyone always craps on the third one, but I don't remember it being so bad. I'll have to check if my opinion on it still holds when I get to it tomorrow.

re: TEAM AMERICA: "You Are Worthless Alec Baldwin" is one of the greatest songs ever written.


TEETH: A teenage girl (Jess Wexler) discovers she's carrying a vagina dentata mutation, symbolizing first her fear of her own sexuality and then her rage at being objectified by the male characters. This was an interesting, if heavy-handed, story and there were some genuinely unnerving bits mixed with the morbid humor. 5/10

APOCALYPTO: Mel Gibson's directorial follow-up to THE PASSION, this one isn't about religion so much as culture clash - pastoral vs. industrial, working class vs. ruling class, nature vs. superstition. This takes place during the declining years of the Mayan empire. A small village gets ransacked by royal guards and several of the residents are taken to be sacrificed. One of the captives (Rudy Youngblood) escapes and tries to get back to where his wife and son are hidden, with several guards in pursuit. This is an incredibly opulent movie (not a complaint, just kind of amazed by the scale of it) but most of the violent scenes felt more gratuitous than disturbing, and the ending was really easy to predict (and not truly historically accurate); however, I liked that there were no name actors in the cast - and that there were no white actors in "brownface", that and the subtitling did make it feel a lot more authentic than a studio production of the story would have been. And really, the line from SOUTH PARK is true: "Say what you want about Mel Gibson but the son-of-a-bitch knows story structure." 6/10

Army of Darkness: 8/10: It's a fun movie and it certainly has its moments. But the movie is so cartoonish (which is most likely intentional) that it feels pointless to not make it animated. I guess if I re-watch it sometime I could easily see myself adoring this movie because I can love over-the-top movies, but at times this movie just felt too damn zany. But I adore how it used skeletons similar to those in Jason and the Argonauts, and Ash Williams is a badass that the movie doesn't try too hard to make likable (and I like movies when they don't force likability out of their protagonist). For my first Evil Dead I saw, it ain't bad, just a little overboard.

i love Army of darkness. when i 1st saw it i saw it as a comedy. i forget why they went that route but i think it was the studio's idea. than it of course flopped to no one's surprise.

anyways. Playgirls & the vampire (1960) a decent film actually. slow at times. but what's funny is the version i watched was 80 minutes. if you look it up on IMDB it says it's 70 minutes! hmm...?

Watched this weekend:

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

It's sort of a Ghibli movie made in the year I was born and I think it still works very good (even though a few little scenes let the 1980s clearly shine through, but whatever...). The animations are sweet, the lead character is great (a princess but actually one that does and knows a lot of stuff all the time without being mainly eye candy), the world presented here is fascinating and the enviromental message is brought nicely without shoving it down your throat or being too obvious.
It possibly won't be among my Top 3 Ghibli movies or something (since there are still some more to catch up) but I fully understand why "Nausicaä" is a beloved classic.

Under the Skin

I watched it today in the theater and...well...that's how I imagine a thriller directed by a music video creator.
This knowing I didn't have a hard time liking this movie. I liked the (intentional) uncomfortable atmosphere that the movie was giving, the main character and Scarlett playing her, the little soundtrack that was played between the silence and the Scottish setting.
However, if there's something that got under MY skin and scared me then it was clearly...

:

wildhoney66 wrote:

i love Army of darkness. when i 1st saw it i saw it as a comedy. i forget why they went that route but i think it was the studio's idea.  than it of course flopped to no one's surprise.

How else would you even see that movie? It's a blatant comedy. The Raimis intentionally went that route; their earliest films were Three Stooges-inspired comedy shorts and 'Evil Dead 2' had its fair share of slapstick and visual gags. The only influence the studio had over 'Army' was in changing the original ending.

All of those Looney Tunes "movies" were basically just showing clips of the old cartoons with very lazy/minimal new "linking footage" anyway....

Frank Rizzo wrote:

All of those Looney Tunes "movies" were basically just showing clips of the old cartoons with very lazy/minimal new "linking footage" anyway....

Yeah the framing devices on those were pretty ridiculous. I remember THE LOONEY LOONEY LOONEY BUGS BUNNY MOVIE (actual title) was even an anthology (there was a segment where Yosemite Sam makes a deal w/Satan, a fake Oscars ceremony, and a spoof of THE UNTOUCHABLES) with bits of old shorts cobbled in. There was also DAFFY'S QUACKBUSTERS which just threw in any short w/a ghost/supernatural theme. I kind of liked 1001 RABBIT TALES where Bugs has to tell stories to "Sultan" Sam's bratty kid.
BB/RR MOVIE did have "What's Opera Doc?" and "Long Haired Hare" back to back so that was pretty sweet; seemed like the RoadRunner section lasted forever though.




I watched HOUDINI starring Adrian Brody on the History Channel; not bad, but kind of felt like a Cliff's Notes version of Houdini's biography.

i watched the nerd film last night and loved it. the only thing i wish could have been helped was the acting was terrible in it. James Rolfe actually was pretty good in it. i'm not cracking on his acting he was good in it.

it was his co-stars that i think were terrible. some of the performaces well some of the parts they were fine in and others they weren't. the film itself was a lot better than i thought it would be to be honest. hell even shit pickle and the bullshit man have small cameos if you look in the right place

NEBRASKA - Contentious family story about a man (Wil Forte) driving his estranged, boozy father (Bruce Dern) across two states so the old guy can claim what he thinks is a million-dollar sweepstakes prize. This was a good story, I'm not sure how I feel about the black & white though - it really straddles the line between artful and pretentious. Forte and Dern are both great but the real show-stealer is June Squibb as Forte's hostile mother. 7.5/10

PRIMAL FEAR (re-watch) - Really well-done little thriller. Amazing performance from Ed Norton (he was nominated for an Oscar but lost to Cuba Gooding Jr. for JERRY MAGUIRE); great work from Laura Linney, Andre Braugher and Frances McDormand too. Richard Gere is a really wooden actor but it works here since his character is kind of a putz anyway. 9/10

ALL IS LOST - Intense movie about a sailor (Robert Redford) who undergoes a series of major setbacks while at sea. Redford is the only cast member and he has maybe two lines; everything else is his character struggling to survive in increasingly worse conditions. Nothing about this movie feels forced, it's beautifully shot and nicely edited and Redford gives a strong, understated performance. 8.5/10

I wanna watch "Nebraska" someday, too

What I watched lately:

Land of the Dead

I've had the DVD so long in my shelf and finally I watched it. To be honest: Yes, it's good.
It's a zombie movie from 2005 by George A. Romero and by that you can expect some quality and you get it. I found the classes of living (luxury, regular people...) and the zombies themselves interesting but the heroes too boring. Still, it deserves a watch. And it's very nice by Romero to give Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg a cameo here.

Opus I

A German avantgarde animated short from 1921. I already knew "Opus II" and this first one is, again, very abstract. Nothing much to write about but I noticed that watching this in the night time is kind of relaxing.

Mermaid

A Japanese animated short from 1964. A young man sees and befriends a mermaid but especially authorities want to punish him for his "day dreamings" since this is handled as a crime. Aside from the social critic the short is not that memorable. But the animation style is quite unusual for Japanese animation, I usually connect it with European productions of that time.

What did we do to deserve this?

A French comedy about a couple getting stressed and openly racist since their four daughters choose husbands that don't seem to be typical French dream son-in-laws (a muslim, a jew, a Chinese and a black French man).
I wanted to give this movie a chance but it was a disappointing experience. Some scenes may be a bit funny and one made me even laugh but the jokes are mostly weak, the story too often falls apart in subplots that don't matter moments later and the characters seem to be very driven purely by the script. It wasn't painful to watch but I wouldn't give it a re-watch.

The Wind rises

The final film by Hayao Miyazaki but my first Ghibli seen in a theater.
The story about a Japanese student following his dream of aircraft engineering in the 1930s/1940s is interesting (also to people like me who know Jack about aircraft), touching sometimes and - of course - told by beautiful traditional animation. One of the best Ghibli movies I've seen so far. I recommend it.

Demon

A Japanase short from 1972 including stop motion and puppets. It tells the story about two brothers hunting in the woods but then dealing with a mysterious demon. The story, however, feels kinda thin, even for this running time. But the stop motion animation and the music create a great atmosphere.

Mermaid

No, not the Japanese one again. This one from 1997 is made by Russian Aleksandr Petrov who creates animation by painting on glass with his fingerstips. In this one a woman living in a lake seduces a young man but this old father wants to protect him for certain reasons.
Very beautiful to watch, it's quite amazing.

Idiocracy - It's funny 'cause it's true.

Oh did I say funny? I meant scary.

I enjoy "Idiocracy", too
And it fits that the director and creator of this movie is the creator of Beavis and Butthead.

Finally got around to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Yep, it's fucking great and hilarious. Twist of the century, I know. Is it also shocking it completely changed a film project I've been working on (for the better)? Maybe.

I may have been inclined to give it a 9 simply because I'm not entirely sure it's worth a 10, but for the fact that they made this on 400,000 dollars (in 1975 dollars, 1.7 million in 2014 dollars.) is impressive enough to round it up to a 10.

I love Monty Pythons Holy Grail as well, it's been ages since I last saw it though. Life of Brian is also hilarious. I need to re-watch both of them some time soon.

'Meaning of Life' is my personal favorite of the Python movies, even though 'Life of Brian' is the objective best.

THE HOBBIT: DESOLATION OF SMAUG - I enjoyed it as an action movie, but Jackson is reeeaaaaalllllyyyyy spreading this story thin. Unlike a lot of people I didn't have a problem w/Tauriel or however it's spelled, I don't think she's a "token female" so much as put in there to keep the Elves from looking like complete assholes, but there's seriously about 10 minutes worth of actual plot here. That said, the cast and visuals are awesome and it ends on one hell of a cliffhanger. I'm pretty excited for the next one. 6.5/10

I have actually seen "The Desolation..." but I have no memory of it since I was receiving ECT at the time. I would probably remember some of it if I was reminded. Do you think it's worth seeing again?

AstaKask wrote:

I have actually seen "The Desolation..." but I have no memory of it since I was receiving ECT at the time. I would probably remember some of it if I was reminded. Do you think it's worth seeing again?

If you plan on seeing THE HOBBIT: BATTLE OF FIVE ARMIES in December or whenever it comes out, then yes, watch it shortly beforehand b/c there are plot/character points that it fills in. If you're not into the series though, this probably won't change your mind.

Alyxx wrote:

The World's End

Awesome movie. Not my favourite in the whole Cornetto trilogy but definitely one I enjoyed, if anything for the sweet use of Sisters of Mercy.

If you like Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg stuff I recomend you check out Spaced. It's a 2 season psudeo-sitcom that they made before they started making movies.

The Grudge (japanese version). I was awake all night, listening for sounds in the night. Why are Asian horror movies so much scarier than Western ones?