Rate The Last Movie You Saw

I don't think the MCU knows what they're doing with the Hulk character at all, to be frank. He's supposed to be a guy who struggles to keep himself under control, in the movies he winds up just being some chill smart super-strong guy. They took away all the drama that makes Hulk a fun character.



She-Hulk actually gets it right in a way, the show is largely about Jen trying to come to grips with her Jen persona and her She-Hulk persona.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking about the Hulk's direction - it's not as if the character is one-note, since anyone writing a screenplay can include as much Banner vs as much Hulk as they want. To just bundle it all together into something as dreary as they have seems a big mistake. They've taken all of the fun out of it - everything that the Hulk has to offer is in his unpredictability, and the unique trade-off the character has between brain/brawn.

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I think the problem with Hulk is he’s too ******* powerful so they have to keep finding reasons to nerf him. Same with Captain Marvel who is always conveniently “off world” when there’s a bug threat.

No, I've steered clear of it on the (probably unfounded) basis that Englishman Toby Jones, as good as he is, won't be playing an American as well as Phillip Seymour-Hoffman is.

Terrific film that follows a young naive lad named Tom as he carries out drill training for the D-Day landings in preparation for the big day. The film mixes some astonishing newsreel and archive footage of World War II with the fictional story of the soldiers, and the impending sense of doom that clouds the narrative really gets under the viewer's skin.

John Alcott, Kubrick's cinematographer for Barry Lyndon and a few of his other films shot this, and there are very obvious lineages between some of the images here and 'Full Metal Jacket', although Alcott passed away a year that film was shot.

Very few films convey the horror of events leading up to D Day as well as this film does. Even modern films like Saving Private Ryan don't get across what it must have been like in the days and weeks leading up to that event.

This is an underseen gem.

And it's on YouTube for free... I think I'll give it a shot. Thanks!

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Overlord - 7/10
I was drawn into this movie instantly. Surprised it was made in 1975 by the looks of it; I would have guessed 1965! Good movie, and thank you @ScarletLion .

I might watch this movie again, as a quick phone call might have caused me to zone out a bit, as I am expecting company in a while.


And it's FREE on YouTube.. Everyone can access this, and if we watched the non-classics more, we could have some more conversations.

It's really great isn't it. There's just something so tragic and impending about it all. There always is with war films, but this was directed with alot of tenderness.

I have also read this. A lot about how this film was going down I was not really psyched with. I think Hoffman's a really good actor at his best, but some of his method bullshit in those days is really self-indulgent and actually harmful to cast-mates.

Well, Professor Hulk was a significant part of the character in the comics and I think they really wanted to get to it. I'm not sure they had a great plan for what to do with it once they got there but I thought it was fun to see.

For me, it was a unique movie that stands alone although I've never seen "One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing" (would guess it's more 'standard' being from 1942), and I don't think I've seen Peter Watkins' "Culloden" or "The War Game" but I liked this movie for things not related to war directly, but the story about people, our motivations, inter-relationships between men, and then woman, who was appeared like an angel. I think I'm going to watch it (or parts) again

Sphinx (1981)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

Drive My Car (2021)

I feel like I would have got a lot more out of this film had I ever read or seen Uncle Vanya. Nonetheless, I liked it.

I watched the first two Zatoichi movies: The Tale of Zatoichi and The Tale of Zatoichi Continues. They follow the eponymous 'Ichi, a blind man who was once a masseuse and is now a deadly samurai for hire.

The first movie offers a great introduction to the character. He's so used to people trying to take advantage of his blindness that he can easily turn their ignorance against them. He does this in the opening scene, where he acts clumsy in a gambler's den, only to end up cleaning everybody out. I enjoy this cockiness of his. He knows he can outduel anyone in a fight, so he is very blunt with people.

What both movies do well is have sympathetic villains. The original sees Zatoichi and his friend Miki Hirate on opposite sides of a gang war. Miki has terminal tuberculosis, but he's always wanted to go toe-to-toe with Zatoichi, who he greatly respects. The second film pits Zatoichi against his one-armed older brother Yoshiro. They clearly love each other, but were separated after being in love with the same woman.

I'm glad I liked these first two Zatoichi movies because there are 23 more on the Criterion Channel for me to check out.

Edge of Darkness (1943)



I really liked this film about a Norwegian fishing village rising up against Nazi invaders during WWII.

The pacing is good as the tensions of the brutalized, peaceful villagers build to a violent crescendo where they have no choice but to finally take up arms and fight back.

I was a bit surprised that they didn't hold back on the violence considering the era the film was made and that this was not a battlefield movie of army against army, but was about civilians (including women) fighting against Third Reich soldiers. The combat scenes seem somewhat "advanced" (a bit graphic) for a 1943 movie.



This film has much in common with the much more modern film: Defiance (2008) which features the story of Polish Jews forced from their homes, who retreat into the woodlands and are pursued by Nazi forces, but who end up taking the fight BACK to their enemy.

If you liked Defiance, then you'll like Edge of Darkness.

I'll admit it's been long enough that I can't comment on the relative strength of the performances. But Infamous was, in my opinion, decidedly better.

Yeah, agreed. I think that there has long been this romanticizing of actors who are really intense and willing to do whatever it takes to get the right reactions out of others or whatever. I'm glad that seems to be going out of vogue.

Like, I just read Geena Davis's account of being humiliated and touched in an unwanted way by Bill Murray during the filming of Quick Change and I really hope that the next few generations of actors will have to deal with less and less of that kind of junk.

The Visitor, 2007

Walter (Richard Jenkins) is a college professor who spends most of his time in Connecticut. Walter has been phoning his work in, ever since the death of his wife. When he has to go down to New York, his technical residence, to present a paper, he is stunned to find Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Gurira) living in his apartment. After sorting out the initial misunderstanding, Walter agrees to let the couple stay until they can find alternate arrangements. Despite himself, Walter finds himself bonding with and getting involved in their immigration woes.

This is a very moving rumination on the importance of human connection and the unfairness that tests and even breaks those connections.

I appreciated the way that the film laid out Walter's half-hearted existence. He takes piano lessons in an effort to feel connected to his late wife. Despite his efforts (and several different teachers!), he is unable to make much headway. He teaches the same college course over and over, merely using white out to change the year at the top of the syllabus.

The film gives a brief (and, honestly, expected) honeymoon period where Walter, Tarek, and Zainab begin to develop their tentative friendship. But very soon thereafter, Tarek finds himself in trouble with the immigration authorities, and Walter is plunged into the world of green cards and infuriating bureaucracy.

I give the film a lot of credit for extolling the value of kindness and friendship, while recognizing the real-world bounds of those things. When Tarek is detained, Zainab does not feel comfortable staying in the apartment with only Walter. Tarek is from Syria, and Zainab is from Senegal. If one or the other of them is deported, it's likely they will never see one another again. Part of Walter's awakening is being thrust into the daily uncertainty that many immigrants and asylum-seekers live with. One of his realizations is that what he sees as common decency holds exactly zero value to the people he interacts with in the different offices and detention centers. Besides, they are merely the face of policies and laws decided by people who don't sit at the front desk buzzing people through.

Later in the film, Walter meets Mouna (Hiam Abbass), Tarek's mother. As they form a friendship, his loss of his wife and the new friendships with the young immigrants seem to cohere.

A running theme through the film is that Tarek begins to teach Walter drumming. Tarek must help Walter to learn the 3/4 time that goes with the music he plays, as opposed to the 4/4 time he is used to. It's like Tarek is giving him a new heartbeat, and the sense of rhythm threads its way through the movie, right up to the last frame.

I was particularly taken, I must admit, by the very last sequence in which, (MAJOR SPOILERS) .

A film with a lot of heart.

Notting Hill, 1999

William (Hugh Grant) lives a relatively mild life as the half-owner of a travel bookstore. But things are shaken up when he falls into a tentative romance with American movie star Anna (Julia Roberts) who is in town to promote her most recent film. Despite their growing affection for one another, Anna's fame constantly puts a strain on their relationship.

This is a fun romantic comedy confection that cruises along amiably on the charms of its lead actors and a deep slew of supporting characters.

I didn't get all of the fuss about Hugh Grant in the 90s, but now that I've gone back to watch some of his films from that era, I get it. I get it. He's adorable. Roberts also displays some really strong comedic timing. (When William, pretending to be a journalist from Horse & Hound asks why the film didn't feature more horses, she diplomatically answers, "Well we wanted to. But that would have been challenging as the film was set . . . in space.")

There are also plenty of fun supporting turns, including Dylan Moran (basically playing his character from Black Books?!) and Gina McKee and Tim McInnerny as William's good friends who have experienced some tragedies in the last two years.

When it comes to portraying Anna's movie star life, the film leans into the way that it can be easy to forget that famous people are, you know, people. This hits pretty hard twice in the film. The first is when Anna and William overhear a table of men talking about movie stars, and their remarks about Anna start out relatively innocuous and then take a turn for more hurtful comments about her alleged drug use and her sex life. Later in the film, some racy photos and a video of Anna surface, and she has to face the humiliation of them being made widely public. The film uses other characters to mitigate there being too much "woe is me" stuff, but still manages to get its point across.

For all the charm of the film, though, I found the will they/won't they nature of the story only medium interesting. While I liked both William and Anna overall, it didn't seem like their understanding of one another evolved all that much. After William has twice witnessed the emotional and mental strain that her public life has put on her, he basically tells her to just get over it. It doesn't seem like they reach a mutual place of respect outside of their initial affection. Really, neither character seems to change. Instead they bobble back and forth on whether or not to be together.

Generally speaking, this was a charming romantic comedy, even if at the end it does feel a bit empty.

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The Last Emperor - (1987)

This intricate examination of the life of Puyi, the last Emperor of China, is very interesting and also very sad. He became Emperor at the age of 2, but was forced to abdicate only 4 years later and lived out his childhood days a virtual prisoner in China's Forbidden City - albeit a prisoner with absolute power over the eunuchs who looked after him and also lived in the city. Upon marrying, he left the city to become an aimless playboy until the Japanese invaded Manchuria and needed a puppet figurehead to rule there. The naïve Puyi thinks he'll actually be emperor again, but all this move gains him is imprisonment when Russians invade and he soon finds himself being "reeducated" by the Communist Chinese after their revolution. The film actually begins with him attempting suicide while a prisoner of Red China, and the film is something of a 'flashback' affair - wonderfully told, with location filming (this really adds to the authentic feel of everything) and a final scene that really gets to me every time. Wistful, at times absurd, often tragic, The Last Emperor really captures the essence of Puyi's life - spoiled and cruel as a child, artless and ingenuous as a young man, we nevertheless see this through his nostalgic eyes - pining for a time when he was loved by an entire nation.

9/10


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Alien Resurrection - (1997)

After starting with two of the best films ever committed to celluloid, followed by a flawed but well-directed third film, Alien Resurrection was always on a hiding to nothing, displeasing most fans and getting a critical mauling from some quarters. While I'm far from in love with this iteration of the franchise, I think there are quite a few wonderfully imaginative moments in it. The horror (which is sadly over-censored to get a decent rating) feels about right - the scene where Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) finds various deformed clones of herself would be at home in the best of Alien films, and the alien birth towards the end, with a human/alien hybrid creature that looks perfectly and wonderfully horrid, gets my thumbs up. Overall, the story doesn't really go anywhere new and the screenplay isn't great, but I still don't think Alien Resurrection is a total loss. It doesn't live up to it's predecessors, but I have a big soft spot for it.

6/10


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Dinner for Schmucks - (2010)

The good news or the bad news first? The bad news is that Dinner for Schmucks is a typical comedy for it's day which follows a well-worn template and absolutely wastes half a dozen great comedians in it's climax. They have all of these guys in one room, and can't do a thing with the riches they have - it's a criminal waste really. The good news is that we get medium to good to average comedy, with Steve Carell carrying most of the load and once again Jemaine Clement drops in like he's been doing so much for me lately. Still - this should be far funnier than it is. Watchable and okay, but lazy and uninspired. I didn't hate it though I'm grading it harshly.

5/10

A Star Is Born (1937)