Rate The Last Movie You Saw

NACHO LIBRE
(2006)

I re-watched it yesterday and was dying of laughter the entire time. Still holds up as an underrated comedy made by the same guys who brought us the cult classic Napoleon Dynamite. Jack Black is a riot.

I remember this fondly. Remember. I use to think the Running Man was great, too.

Leprechaun 4: In Space
(Brian Trenchard-Smith, 1997)


Joining the likes of Jason Voorhees, James Bond, the Brave Little Toaster and other franchises that inexplicably went to space, Leprechaun 4 finds the diminutive horror icon attempting to wed, bed and bury an alien princess to become king of her planet, only to have his plan thwarted by a platoon of cock-blocking space marines. (No mention of the "sneeze once, sneeze twice, she'll become my bride if she sneezes thrice" bullsh*t from the second film, as either this iteration of the leprechaun prefers relationships that are more consensual, or continuity is an abstract concept.)

The franchise's silliness has reached new heights, with cartoonish deaths, cross-dressing cyborgs and a scientist who is half human, half ice-cream cart. I learned that it's a death sentence when an alien princess flashes her glittery breasts. And I'll never piss on the dismembered parts of a leprechaun after witnessing its magical spirit swim up urine like a parasite and re-spawn in a man's erection. The tone of Leprechaun 4 is self-aware, but the sudden emphasis on Aliens-style action fits the movie about as well as a Magnum XL on the dick of a gnat. Sets are noticeably cheap. Special-effects are a mixed bag: 90's CGI is PS1 quality, but there's some effectively goopy practical effects, most notably in the creation of a half-scorpion, half-tarantula, half-android monstrosity that makes Brundlefly look like Brad Pitt. The movie boasts a higher body count than every previous installment combined, but apparently the FX department didn't have any buy-one-get-one-free coupons to splurge on gore.

Leprechaun 4 literally ends with a giant middle finger to its audience. I'm sure that act is reciprocated among many viewers for having 90-minutes of their lives wasted on such idiocy.

Best Kill: Pan Face

(2013)

Her explores the possibility of a romantic relationship between a human and a machine and although something like that might sound unrealistic at first, the setting of this film made it seem like the opposite. It was a perfect combination of being futuristic enough for the human-machine relationship to be believable, while still staying close enough to the real world to make it seem like this is something that could truly happen. Combine that setting with great performances by Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore and Scarlett Johansson as Samantha, and you get an unusual romance that nevertheless feels very real.

Spike Jonze has done a great job by managing to make sure that all parts of this film fit together very well. The dialogues are beautifully written, the performances, and especially Joaquin Phoenix's, are very convincing and emotional, the soundtrack and sound effects complement what we see and make it even more emotional and all of that is bundled in a perfect looking package, which has a distinct style with beautiful colors.

The direction that the story takes near the end was different from what I expected and for me, it took away from the realism of the rest of the film, so I was a bit disappointed by that. Also, the scenes between Theodore and Chris Pratt's character Paul felt a bit unnecessary and they didn't add much to the story for me.

Although I had these problems with the story itself, I think the story was told in a great way. I loved the dialogue, the performances and the look of this film. On top of that, it's about a very interesting subject which I think will become more and more relevant as technology continues to improve and as humans will keep growing more dependent on machines. I'd recommend this film and I think it would be really interesting to watch this again in the future to see how it holds up with reality.