General Entertainment ~Rate The Last Movie/TV Show You Watched Thread~

[Fizzzzle]

8 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

I don't really see the "white savior" narrative as much in The Last Samurai, but rather a white man from America with deep scars from the massacre of the Native Americans from war finding solace in samurai culture and trying to honor it. Ken Watanabe's character is the last samurai, Tom Cruise is just a part of it.

 

I dunno, I love that movie so I'm probably biased. The Hans Zimmer score alone is masterful. 

The score is *chef's kiss*

[Bloodporne]

2 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

That's not why it's preposterous from a historical perspective. I can get behind a white outsider to ease us into the struggle as an audience and therefore have no problem with Tom Cruise being the main character of the movie. The "last samurai" were not fucking shooting arrows on horseback while riding into machine gun fire. The samurai were a privileged class that lost their privilege in the Meiji era and fought to protect it. It wasn't a noble cause and they certainly never brought a sword to a machine gun fight. Not to mention the impractical armor used in the movie. It basically paints a romantic portrait of bushido culture that never existed, let alone in the late 19th century when they definitely were using guns.

 

I could go into a whole thing about the depiction of the "noble savage" in films and why it's patronizing colonial apologism, but I'm a WASP so even me saying it is also patronizing in its own way.

 

... still, it's a good movie. I can appreciate a good story regardless of context.

No I agree with that bit, at least to the extent that I know my Japanese history which isn't nearly as detailed as yours probably, but I was just pointing out that I don't think the movie counts as a white savior flick. The historical nonsense you described sounds about right as a baseline for most historical movies which is always a shame to me. Too many people take historical movies as gospel for some reason. 

 

Ultimately though, like you said, it is a great movie and I cut that art form a lot of slack in general. When that cinematography and soundtrack strikes gold, you could be filming a carrot farting and I'd be quite impressed. I'm easy like that.

[Mercury33]

4 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

That's not why it's preposterous from a historical perspective. I can get behind a white outsider to ease us into the struggle as an audience and therefore have no problem with Tom Cruise being the main character of the movie. The "last samurai" were not fucking shooting arrows on horseback while riding into machine gun fire. The samurai were a privileged class that lost their privilege in the Meiji era and fought to protect it. It wasn't a noble cause and they certainly never brought a sword to a machine gun fight. Not to mention the impractical armor used in the movie. It basically paints a romantic portrait of bushido culture that never existed, let alone in the late 19th century when they definitely were using guns.

 

I could go into a whole thing about the depiction of the "noble savage" in films and why it's patronizing colonial apologism, but I'm a WASP so even me saying it is also patronizing in its own way.

 

... still, it's a good movie. I can appreciate a good story regardless of context.

Eh who cares, we romanticize every form of “Historical warriors” from Knights to Cowboys. 

[silentbob]

I loved The Last Samurai. I also think both Ken Watanabe and the musical score by Hans Zimmer, were robbed of an Oscar. 

[EternallDarkness]

Count me in as a huge fan of Last Samurai 

[Fizzzzle]

I don't parciularly care if a movie is historically accurate or not as long as it tells a good story, as long as the historical inaccuracies aren't dangerous. Like who gives a shit if the Scots wear kilts in Braveheart, or if they have Samurai using swords and arrows against rifles while wearing armor from the 1600's?

 

That's why I'm totally fine separating accuracy vs. "is it a good movie."

[best3444]

15 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

I don't parciularly care if a movie is historically accurate or not as long as it tells a good story, as long as the historical inaccuracies aren't dangerous. Like who gives a shit if the Scots wear kilts in Braveheart, or if they have Samurai using swords and arrows against rifles while wearing armor from the 1600's?

 

That's why I'm totally fine separating accuracy vs. "is it a good movie."

 

Braveheart is my favorite movie of all time and has one if the most beautiful soundtracks in any film ever. 

[Keyser_Soze]

 

Arachnid: 7/10 - So this is me getting back on track with my Filmax movie exploration. You probably noticed (unless you were @Greatoneshere ) that I got off track in previous weeks, although for good reasons. If you will recall that Filmax is that Spanish production company that has Fantastic Factory under their wing that have some cool gore effects. Previous movies they've done that I've seen were Faust and Beneath Still Waters, with Filmax producing The Nameless.

 

In any case Arachnid is a creature feature taking place some random "south pacific" jungle island. The film starts out a bit rough early on with some terrible CGI and a plot point that honestly isn't even reflected on or answered later in the movie. A navy pilot crash lands on this island and it just so happens that this island has some huge mutated spider on it. When survivors turn up by boat (somehow, just don't think about it) in some civilized part of the world a medical team put together an expedition to figure out the cause. Obviously the movie has some holes and sometimes the movie just wants to create a victim but you come to see the monster and Fantastic Factory did a good job here as expected. The spider and other creatures and a lot of the gore effects are well done.

 

The cast is pretty solid as well. It stars Alex Reid who you've probably seen in The Descent. One thing to note here is that the movie makes you think you're going to watch some male led heroic adventure but it's quite evident the women can hold their own and are in control here. Reid plays Mercer, a former Navy pilot who can hold her own and then there is Neus Asens who plays a well educated doctor that is also well versed in the art of surviving the jungle and such (well until the point of her untimely demise). The look of the movie is generally nothing special but there are some cool shots in it, below is one of the cooler shots you'll see in any movie

 

Spoiler

 

Overall I came in with low expectations, and the first five minutes set my expectations even lower but after that rough patch the movie really takes off and turns into a movie that's actually entertaining to watch.

[johnny]

my heart can’t beat unless you tell it to - 3.5/5

 

neat take on vampirism

[elbobo]

Escape Room Tournament of Champions

 

I found the first one to be dumb fun, this one was just dumb dumb. All the scenes just consist of the characters panicked screaming what they need to do next and it loses all urgency after the first escape room.

 

3/10

[Bloodporne]

Seven Psychopaths 

 

I'm a fan of In Bruges and missed this one when it came out so I figured I'd finally give it a shot. Maybe the ending ties it up but I didn't make it and turned it off about an hour and twenty minutes into it. The whole movie kind of felt like a lopsided, awkwardly paced hodgepodge of random edgy nonsense. The great cast seems to kind of just flail around in this film equivalent of listening to a Gen X dude on a coke binge. It's a problem when you manage to make Sam Rockwell and Christopher Walken annoying and boring all at once. 

 

At Least Tom Waits Showed Up/10

[silentbob]

Personally I loved Seven Psychopaths and I’ll just say I hope you give it another chance. 

[Bloodporne]

11 minutes ago, silentbob said:

Personally I loved Seven Psychopaths and I’ll just say I hope you give it another chance. 

[Keyser_Soze]

I also enjoyed Seven Psychopaths.

[Mercury33]

I also enjoyed it. Although not as much as In Bruges. 

[Bloodporne]

Surprised to see this director did Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. I really liked that one but I guess never checked who directed it? Surprised to see the In Bruges guy did that one now, huh. 

[Fizzzzle]

Sweet Tooth (Season 1) - 6/10

 

Pretty good. There are definitely a few tear jerker moments. It's a lot darker than you would think given the trailer and general tone. Occasionally the music jarring when they just randomly throw in some shitty alt pop commercial music. It doesn't happen too often, though. It's also pretty plodding. I pretty much had it going on in the background for most of it and I don't think I missed anything.

 

I liked it well enough to want to see the second season, though, whenever that comes out.

[TheLeon]

CODA- I’m a sucker for coming of age movies. This one hits a lot of familiar notes (ha), but is well made and worth watching. I don’t know if it would hit a lot of people like this, but there were tears. Happy tears.

[johnny]

5 hours ago, TheLeon said:

CODA- I’m a sucker for coming of age movies. This one hits a lot of familiar notes (ha), but is well made and worth watching. I don’t know if it would hit a lot of people like this, but there were tears. Happy tears.

it definitely has. i think apple is pushing Coda for award season. they probably released it too early for serious consideration but it does everything well and hits. 

[Fizzzzle]

Watchmen (HBO) - 7/10

 

It starts off incredibly strong, but I have to admit I was getting pretty damn bored for the last couple episodes. I was all the way on board with it until the 

Spoiler

Dr. Manhattan

stuff started happening and my brain just kind of started to glaze over. I feel like the ending would have had a lot more impact if the previous 90 minutes hadn't been one big exposition dump.

[Keyser_Soze]

 

Arcane (Season1): 6/10 - A lot of hype surrounding this one but mostly from giddy lol fans. The show certainly has a remarkable style to it. It's a 3D show but looks like a painting, you could pause at any moment and it would look like a painting. But once you get past the eye candy it's kind of dull. This gave me shades of Phantom Menace vibes. You literally could do anything about this show but 75% of it is focused on politics, sitting around a meeting room arguing. If that's not happening then there is politics in the underground. It's a lot of treading water for a Jinx origin story pretty much. I thought the acting was ok but overall the show felt devoid of emotion for some reason. Sure there were sad parts but they landed flat. The soundtrack is a mixed bag of library music and really bad pop music. If they weren't paying Imagine Dragons and Pusha T so much money they could have had a proper orchestral soundtrack. The intro song is anti hype as well. I've never skipped an intro so fast and I usually sit through them.

Hopefully season 2 improves some things, maybe they'll introduce Nami too (Doubt it!)

[johnny]

matrix reloaded 3.5/5

matrix revolutions 3/5

memories of murder 5/5 

[Dre801]

Matrix Resurrections - Should have let sleeping dogs lie/10

[johnny]

being the ricardos - 2/5 

 

sorkin is really trying to win an oscar or something. i think this is the worst thing he’s written. a combination of that and also poor casting. i like nicole kidman but she wasn’t a good choice for lucille ball. now i think the script made it more difficult for her, but still a bad choice. desi arnaz could have been better casted too. this movie really needed more charm. i’m not really sure what sorkin was going for here. 

[Keyser_Soze]

 

Renegades: 7/10 - One look at the movie poster with Kiefer Sutherland with that mustache and Lou Diamond Phillips and I knew I had to see this. This is the type of movie you never really see anymore. Big car chases, epic shootouts, Philadelphia! It's got a bit of everything. Beyond the two on the poster the movie also stars Robert Knepper famous for his role in Prison Break, and he's a real piece of trash in this movie as well. Also, Jamie Gertz, most famously the lady who couldn't "spare a square" in that episode of Seinfeld.

Kiefer plays a cop, Buster McHenry, but he's unofficially undercover so not really a cop in a way. Lou Diamond Phillips is a native, Hank Storm, of the Lakota tribe. The two's paths cross when Buster is working a heist gone awry and the main bad guy, Marino (Knepper), see's the Lakota's spear and decides to steal it while shooting Hank's brother while he's at it. So naturally there are some trust issues when the two decide to work together. The movie mostly plays it straight but seems to ham it up sometimes. Either way worked for me. Overall a pretty solid "one of those" types of movies.

[Fizzzzle]

5 hours ago, Dre801 said:

Matrix Resurrections - Should have let sleeping dogs lie/10

I'm like.. I can't tell whether I like it or not yet. That seems to be a common theme with Wachowski movies.

[Bloodporne]

The Hateful Eight: Extended Cut - 9/10

 

I've seen it twice before and always liked it quite a bit but watching it last night with the wind whipping outside and all, this is a really great flick. Absolutely love what an evil piece of shit everyone is. Tricking Bruce Dern into that self defense shooting is so good every time.

[5timechamp]

Batman The Long Halloween 8/10:   I was worried this would be another adaptation that wasted a classic Batman storyline as so many others have done. Thankfully the story was adapted into 2 parts thus allowing the story to breathe….. the voice cast and animation style again differ from the usual and works for the film. The story segments are slightly fragmented but its tolerable here as the story happens over the course of a year.

 

The overall story as always differs from the comic but in this instance it works in service of the story… In fact I like that the conclusion of the story decides to fill in and answer some mysteries that the comic did not… in doing so it also compromises Batman (I like the imperfect Batman seen here, though a little too incompetent at times)..

 

Jason Eckles as Batman is effective and Troy Bakers Joker as always is a treat.. 

[johnny]

Absentia - 3.5/5

 

kinda neat that mike flanagan’s directorial debut was a kickstarter movie 

[gamer.tv]

No Time to Die: 9/10

 

loved it, can’t wait to see where it goes from here.

[elbobo]

Red Notice

 

as paint by the numbers as could be

 

5/10

 

 

Witcher season 2

 

better than the first and everything with Ciri and Geralt was good but I couldn't get into the side plots at all.

 

7/10

[gamer.tv]

Don’t look up: 9/10

 

Loved it and the message behind it. The premise was interesting and it all worked for me.

[Fizzzzle]

True Blood (season 1)

 

It's pulpy garbage yet I can't help but keep watching

[Dre801]

37 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

True Blood (season 1)

 

It's pulpy garbage yet I can't help but keep watching

Loved that show for the first three or four seasons.

[Fizzzzle]

11 minutes ago, Dre801 said:

Loved that show for the first three or four seasons.

I find that to be true of most supernatural/fantasy shows that don't really have an ending in mind when they start (I know True Blood is loosely based on a novel). It's like they only have maybe 3 or 4 seasons mapped out and don't really know what the hell they're going to do after that because who knows if the show will even be on the air anymore.

 

Supernatural? Pretty good for the first 3 or 4 seasons, then they had to keep raising the stakes and it got dumb.

Grimm? Pretty good for the first ~3 seasons, then they had to keep raising the stakes and it got dumb.

Lost? I'm pretty sure they never had any fucking clue what they were doing.

 

Unlike shows like CSI or whatever that can just keep going for centuries, shows that have fantasy elements kind of have to keep expanding the world and introducing new things or else it just turns into another procedural or soap opera, so it either jumps the shark or gets boring. That's why I liked Fringe so much. Just as it was starting to get stale, they were like "alright, we only get one more season, fuck it" and went completely off the deep end. But in a good way.