Rate The Last Movie You Saw

[noodles_leone]

You?d prefer a bad movie, as long as it were opposed to fossil fuels.

I'd prefer a terrible movie as long as the Jewish Wherewolf would be the antagonist. +2 if he gets killed by vegans.

The Banshees of Inisherin (McDonagh, 2022) - 8,5 to 9/10 (maybe more)
Best movie of 2022? I might be on board with DJ on that one.

[dave jenkins]

Kaili Blues (2015) - 9/10. Does Bi Gan love his endless tracking shots, or what? You will believe that there is a place called China, and that it is stranger than any place imagined in science fiction.

[dave jenkins]

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) - 1/10. Eleven Oscar nominations . . . and it's a complete POS. Hard to believe that Hollywood could produce something worse than Babylon in the same year in which Babylon' was released. But they did it.

[noodles_leone]

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) - 1/10. Eleven Oscar nominations . . . and it's a complete POS. Hard to believe that Hollywood could produce something worse than Babylon in the same year in which Babylon' was released. But they did it.

No. It's not for everyone and it is exhausting but saying it's a POS is so dumb you're now entering Titoli territory. It OBJECTIVELY isn't.
I'll know if you went full Titoli with Bablyon too tonight.

[noodles_leone]

So I saw Babylon and it is pretty bad. Rating it higher than EEAAO is plain wrong. EEAAO does everything Babylon does but better. It (mostly) succeeds at everything Babylon fails at, which means it mostly succeeds at everything (everywhere) (all at once).

[cigar joe]

$ aka Dollars (1971) Hamburg Neo Noir

Directed and Written by Richard Brooks.

Brooks directed  (Deadline - U.S.A.(1952), Blackboard Jungle (1955), In Cold Blood (1967), Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977). Excellent Cinematography by Petrus R. Schl?mp and Music by Quincy Jones (In the Heat of the Night).

The film stars Warren Beatty (All Fall Down, Mickey One, Bonnie and Clyde, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Dick Tracy, Bugsy) as Joe Collins, Goldie Hawn (CrissCross) as hooker Dawn Divine, Gert Fr?be (Goldfinger) as Mr. Kessel. Robert Webber (in Noirs Highway 301, Harper, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and also 12 Angry Men) as Attorney  Mr. North, Scott Brady (He Walked By Night, Undertow, Port Of New York, The Night Strangler) as Sarge, Arthur Brauss (Cross of Iron) as Candy Man aka "Mister Sunglasses" with Robert Stiles as Major, Christiane Maybach as Helga, and Hamburg circa 1970.

Richard Brooks slips in some Classic Noir references. The Candy Man character reminds us of Alan Ladd in This Gun for Hire when he feeds his cat. The Candy Man's sunglasses are also maybe a homage to Sam Fuller's Underworld USA. The displayed gold bar in the bank connected with Gert Fr?be is obviously a nod to Goldfinger, lol. The chase through the railyards and the trains at night possibly homages Brit Noir It Always Rains On Sunday and French Poetic Realist Noir Le Bette Humaine. There's even a mention of 14 Hours at one point, lol, intentional or coincidence. There may be more to look for.

Warren Beaty's Sam is just a variation of his John McCabe character from McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and Goldie Hawn is just doing her giggly, silly, groovy hippie chick character we all probably first  noticed from Laugh In. It works, adequately as an updated version of the same type of silly, ditsy characters Marilyn Monreo played in Some Like It Hot and The Seven Year Itch or Barbara Nichols for that matter. Scott Brady is great, (and the most impressive) as a more deadly and serious version of Sergeant Bilko, playing a shady black marketeer. Robert Webber is good as the slightly kinked mob mouthpiece and Arthur Brauss is scary as the alienated and obsessed mob hit man / junkie.

This film functions like Hamburg's Naked City. The film is a wonderful archival treasure trove of Hamburg circa 1970s. And if you are a railfan there are some great train sequences throughout. It's two slight flaws are probably the over long chase sequence (though I didn't mind it), and what seems like a tacked on "happy" ending (were they thinking of a possible sequel?). 8/10

[dave jenkins]

The Fabelmans (2022) -7/10. The fable man's very own coming-of-age story, as told by Spielberg himself. I wasn't planning on seeing this, but the wife wanted to go to Women Talking. Now, there's no way in hell I'm going to watch something called Women Talking, so I had to find something else at the cineplex to occupy my time while Mrs. J did her thing. The film with the most compatible showtime was The Fabelmans. Hey, I actually enjoyed it a lot. I'm not much of a Spielberg fan--there are maybe 3 of his films I like--but I'll certainly be getting this on blu. Not the best film of last year, by any means (and a bit too close to Wildlife in places), but I found it very entertaining. And it sure smells like an Oscar winner.

When I asked the wife about her film she told me she no longer identifies as a pacifist. WTF?

[noodles_leone]

You should keep a little more control over what your wife is watching.

[cigar joe]

The Fabelmans (2022) -7/10. The fable man's very own coming-of-age story, as told by Spielberg himself. I wasn't planning on seeing this, but the wife wanted to go to Women Talking. Now, there's no way in hell I'm going to watch something called Women Talking, so I had to find something else at the cineplex to occupy my time while Mrs. J did her thing. The film with the most compatible showtime was The Fabelmans. Hey, I actually enjoyed it a lot. I'm not much of a Spielberg fan--there are maybe 3 of his films I like--but I'll certainly be getting this on blu. Not the best film of last year, by any means (and a bit too close to Wildlife in places), but I found it very entertaining. And it sure smells like an Oscar winner.

When I asked the wife about her film she told me she no longer identifies as a pacifist. WTF?

Watch out.

[T.H.]

Tango & Cash (1989) - A big dumb movie, with a big dumb script and a big dumb plot, with big dumb logic and (mostly) big dumb one liners. However, Russell and Stallone have good chemistry, the pace flies and it's very well directed in spots -- Andrei Konchalovsky (Runaway Train) was the original director but was replaced during production, and you can basically tell he didn't shoot the weak finale and the last act. The score/music is very 80's and it's fitting that T&C was the last movie released in the decade, tied with Spielberg's Always (who made way more than 3 good movies DJ). This ended the 80's on a silly and very 80's bang. C+

Tammy and the T-Rex (1994) - The extended cut with the gore is the way to go, for those with a predilection for sleaze. While it's not on the level of a Frankenhooker in terms of those intentionally goofy B movies that know not to wink at the audience too much (while also functioning as a movie), Tammy and the T-Rex is strangely effective and entertaining...and funny. C+

[T.H.]

Tequila Sunrise (1988) - The first 70 minutes or so has some very good 40's inspired storytelling presented in a very 1980's Los Angeles package that moves at a nice pace. But then the love triangle becomes very stale, Kurt Russell is barely in the movie and the story never develops. Basically any route this movie could have gone would have made for a much better experience. The music and photography can be very good at times, but the quality falls off a cliff at a certain point. C-

[noodles_leone]

Top Gun: Maverick (2022) - 4/10
Basically it's the original top gun with all of its flaws and limitations patiently replicated with modern cameras and elevated to almost sanctification levels. The funny thing is the sheer amount of people who went from using the original Top Gun as the basic "garbage movie that only dumb people like" joke to "good old Hollywood, they don't make it like that anymore". I'm not dumb and I don't have Alzeihmer so I remember that both Top Gun movies are pretty lame and very, very ridiculous. At least the old one was sincere in doing its stupid thing while the new one is engineered to tap into your fake nostalgia. But the new one has fanciers stuff, and its competition is WAY lamer. I really liked the action sequences in the new one but I don't have a single image of any of them 24h after seeing the movie, while I still have some very vague memory of the vintage action from the original movie. The love interest is where the original really shines against the new one, everything that had to do with poor Jennifer Connelly (or was it just a random girl wearing a Jennifer Connelly mask? How much make up and how many video filters did they use?) made me want to throw my tv out of the windows: do these film executives really think we are this dumb? Still, there is some snappy dialogue and the cinematography is very shiny.

[stanton]

Yes, the new Top Gun is a pretty forgettable film, which is with its boring characters and pseudo conflicts too often only a boring film. And the action scenes are indeed good, but far from great, and surely not great enough to save half of this messy film. And Jennifer Connelly massively "understrained"  in a totally superfluous role (apart from the fact that such films seemingly must have these kind of superfluous roles), and I kinda felt sorry for her.

The biggest surprise is that nearly everyone seems to like this aesthetic flop. Actually the only mediocre film I watched last year theatrically. 3/10

[noodles_leone]

Fake nostalgia and the plummeting quality of the hollywood blockbuster tricked people into thinking they like that film (and the original one, which, let me underline it once again, they didn't like at the time).

[stanton]

Yes, the old one got the worst reviews possible here in Germany, and is now in the "nostalgic" phase, in which everything becomes great which had success in ones childhood. Same with other bad films like Rambo II or underrated films like Red Dawn.

But that does not really explain why seemingly everyone loves the retro charm of TGM.