Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Hackers (1995)

The Fabelmans 7/10

The Station Agent 7.5/10

The Menu 8/10

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio 8/10

Yes, exactly the kind of question we should expect from a bunch of greaser toughs. Especially in a song where their responses always have sexual connotations attached to them.


You seem to think you would need the Pink Ladies to be asking Sandy directly "did you ****" before "did you put up a fight" can be interpreted as sexually orientated. But that is clearly not the point of the songs structure. The men are ironic counterpoints to the Pink Ladies' more swoony take on romance. To have that line be a direct response to their questions about love, with an answer that is also about love, would make literally zero sense in the context of what the running gag of the song is.


But no, we can't say for certain without talking to the songwriters. But this doesn't mean we can't look at character, context and intent to determine what is most likely the meaning. And you have to be reading the linguistics of this song in a complete bubble to at least not acknowledge the distinct possibility that this is how it should be taken.


And I'm more than fine having this response moved to another thread since it's not really the point of the thread

I love this film. It's an absolute 10/10 for me. And that ENDING!

If you don't understand why someone, and specifically a female someone, would have a gut negative reaction to hearing someone ask if a woman "put up a fight" in the context of a sexual encounter, I simply don't know what to say anymore. I think that I have summed up all of my viewpoints in my previous posts.

Thank you for the link!

Avengers: Endgame, 2019

In the aftermath of the events of Infinity War, the surviving members are trying to cope with their losses. Shocked when Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) reappears from the Quantum Realm, the Avengers realize that they might have a chance to get their loved ones back after all.

Okay, fine. FINE! I've used the words "exhausted" and "fatigue" to describe my feelings about most of the Marvel movies I've seen in the last 5 years or so. After enjoying most of the movies, I hit a turning point where the excessive runtimes and just overall sameness of the films had worn down my enjoyment. But to give full credit where credit is due, I enjoyed this movie quite a bit and thought it was a fitting bookend to what had come before it.

I was not optimistic when I was initially eyeing up the 3 hour run time. But I think that why the film largely worked for me is that it divides its story and its cast in clever ways. The first half of the movie is overtly styled as a heist. The Avengers must jump back to different points in their own pasts to capture the infinity stones before Thanos can get his hands on them. This works well on two levels. On the first level, it's just fun to see the way that the characters interact with their earlier selves and the events from their past. The second reason it works well is because it divides up the team into smaller groups so that we have more time to spend with each of them. This format allows for more small moments of reflection and personal interaction, such as when Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) quest to a distant realm where they must parse out their feelings on destiny and duty and self-worth and redemption.

The film is also very short on the kind of bloated, "what is even happening?!" CGI-laden action that I've come to find borderline insufferable. Even the final showdown, which looked like it was headed that way, managed to pull itself more into small moments and personal stakes. The action is highly centered on character decisions, and most of those are centered on difficult choices.

My favorite subplot in the whole Marvel universe up to this point has been the fractured-then-repaired friendship between Bucky (Sebastian Stan) and Captain America (Chris Evans). But I thought that the overall theme of this film---loss in its many forms--was really well done. Every character, at some point in the film, is forced to look at the losses they have suffered. For some of them, like Hawkeye, those losses can in theory be reversed. For Captain America, the loss is the love he left in the past. For Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and later the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), the loss is one that is irreversible. For Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), the loss is what he risks if he ventures back into battle. And I really felt like it just works. It is coherent in a way that I've not really felt in one of these films in a long time, and it's impressive because of the way that it encompasses such a sprawl of characters.

Generally speaking, I felt like the choices made in this film (a handful of eye-rolling "comic relief" moments notwithstanding) were god ones. Very little wasted time. And just the right amount of sentiment for its characters. I really liked the touch of the actors' signatures over the roles that they played.

You have given me joy-joy feelings.

As I was writing this I was like, "Well, I know at least one person who will like this opinion."

By May be found at the following website: [1], Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42736742

Two Days, One Night - (2014)

This is the third Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne film I've seen, and my favourite out of all of them so far. Two Days, One Night speaks to most people who struggle in the modern world with few jobs and overburdening financial pressures - especially those the victim of unfair practices. In this Sandra Bya (Marion Cotillard) has been fired from her job after her boss told all of her workmates to vote over whether they want a 1000 euro bonus or else keep her on. Her husband and friend have convinced the boss to do the vote over on Monday, and so over the weekend Sandra must go from workmate to workmate pleading her case, desperate to keep a job she needs for the family to stay afloat. Meanwhile she's struggling with the aftermath of depression - which doesn't help when some workmates become aggressive with her. It's a battle with ebbs and flows - some are moved to tears and side with her, which bucks up her spirits, while some actually become physically violent. The atmosphere of financial desperation and utter hopelessness permeates this film, but it's not a depressing one - it's a rollercoaster of emotions and something that will have your absolute empathy.

Marion Cotillard is great in this (she was nominated for an Oscar), and the movie as a whole is a good example of the kind of everyday stuff the Dardenne brothers construct their films around, reminiscent of Italian neorealism. All of their movies are very grounded representations of real problems that real people might have - but in this an entire economic system is being held to account. Too many people are being unfairly squeezed into poverty needlessly, just so the rich can get even richer. Visually, it feels like we're walking around with Sandra on her wretched and distressing mission, without overt cinematic shots so it doesn't break the feeling of reality. An easy recommendation from me.

9/10

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The way that this film depicts how systems are put in place to pit people against each other while those at the top never have to scrabble at all is so painful. A friend of mine was just told she has to lay off three of the five people on her team, despite the fact that they are the most successful team at doing their role in the company. This led to others sharing their stories, including one person who was at a meeting where layoffs were announced. When someone asked if any of the executives were taking a paycut, one of them answered no because "it wouldn't have made any difference." Actually, if even one of them had taken a 5% paycut, it would have saved at least one person and maybe two from being let go.

I think that this movie puts that injustice out there, while also acknowledging that people like Sandra have no choice but to play the game because they do not have any leverage.

Have you seen L'Enfant? Just watched it a bit ago and thought it was very good.

I read a joke this morning that touches on that. "A CEO, a Tea Party member, and a union worker are sitting at a table. A plate of twelve cookies appears. The CEO grabs eleven of them, looks at the Tea Partier, and exclaims, pointing to the worker, "Watch out - he wants your cookie!"" It takes a special kind of greed to set your own people against each other. It's so frustrating, because it's all often a greed that's so needless. A lot of these people in lofty positions are already rich, and have far more than they need - but they'll inflict suffering on others just so they'll be that little bit more rich.

I read your review of that and enjoyed it - as I was already interested in the directors I'm looking forward to seeing it very much.

Seriously, it's always been the character stuff and the world-building I liked about these movies. Very little of the action is any more interesting to me than any other action. But that's true in general for me these days.
Did you do Infinity War already, I can't remember.

That's actually also one of my favorite jokes, though I hadn't heard it with the Tea Partier. I originally heard it when Trump was first running and turning immigration into the big issue.
"A banker, a blue-collar worker, and an immigrant are sitting around a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The banker takes elven and gets up to leave, then leans over and whispers in the worker's ear, "Hey! I think that immigrant's tryin' to take your cookie."
It works with a bunch of different characters. Great joke.

I understand it; I mean, that's why I've been talking to you about it like this, so I can get a better understanding of why you feel the way you do about it (and vice versa, hopefully). If you don't want to talk about this anymore, then I'll leave you alone about it after this, I just want to say that adults of all genders should be able to exchange their thoughts on gender-related issues, and any other sensitive subject in good faith, without say, dismissing one another's opinions because of the differences in identity they might have, or refusing to communicate about them at all (or anything else that might get in the way of that), because otherwise, men and women might as well just stop talking to each other about anything, as far as I'm concerned.

Watched the new 4K Disc which is just stunning in terms of image quality and does Edmond Richard’s beautiful photography justice. Orson Welles filmed it in the former Yugoslavia with many shots including parallel lines of architecture and shadows. In later shots, clearly drawing from his love of German expressionism in terms of visuals, there are rooms filled with cracks and crates and spikes which seem to pay homage to the likes of Cabinet of Dr Caligari. However the audio wasn’t great, perhaps because Welles dubbed many of the international cast into English and the sync of the dialogue was out in most scenes.

The film is obviously the definition of ‘Kafkaesque’, as we enter a paranoid, disorienting nightmare faced by the main character Josef K (Anthony Perkins). Josef is accused of a crime by the police, who may or not be the police, but he’s not told what the crime is. He stumbles into various characters and into his own trial but gets more confused as the film goes on. Unfortunately I got more confused too. It’s difficult to follow at times and challenges the viewer with long scenes of profound dialogue, especially in the middle of the film.

The ending though is truly superb and must surely have inspired many films from ‘Being John Malkovich’ to ‘The Truman Show’ and everything in between. I will re-watch this film at some point to try and focus on the dialogue more than the beautiful photography, which may reveal more.

The Beast with Five Fingers (1946)

Sweet French movie.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

Thought this got good reviews. Maybe it didn’t.

This was one of the only Marvel films where the character work felt actually substantial to me. I did see Infinity War, but almost all of it disappeared from my mind.

You started the conversation by saying that you feel the lyric has been unfairly maligned. I think it's pretty obvious why a lot of people would hear the phrase being used to refer to sexual activity and have a negative reaction. For many people, in fact, (and I'm going to use a word I know a lot of people hate, but it's accurate!) that kind of language is genuinely triggering.

At a basic level, it really doesn't matter what the songwriter intended when he wrote the lyric, nor does it matter what the actor meant to imply when he sang the lyric, nor does it even matter all that much what we can infer about the situation that happened in the film. The most forgiving reading of the whole thing is that a songwriter oops accidentally used a phrase that he didn't know would imply what it does imply to many people, many of whom have written in this very thread to say that they like/love Grease but do not like that lyric.

I will happily concede that the songwriter could have meant to imply nothing more malicious or coercive than the character having to buy Sandy some flowers to win her love. I will happily concede that the actor could have thought his character was just asking if Danny had to write Sandy a few love poems to win her affection. But even if I concede those things, they have zero impact on how I felt hearing that lyric. And acting as if I had to look really hard to find a way to be upset about the lyric or people are having to contort themselves to find sketchiness in it feels like fake naivete.

Ostlund's films are very in your face. I think you either really click with them or you find them obnoxious. He has a great track record for me, personally, though, so I still plan to check out Triangle of Sadness.