Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Hellboy (2004)

Staggeringly beautiful film about identity and awakening. A stunning example of slow cinema. The first word isn't uttered until the 21st minute. An ethnic Georgian and his granddaughter set up a tiny home on one of the many islands created by the shifting silt of a river. They hope to grow crops and make a living, but external forces interrupt them.

It's possibly a parable for a changing Georgian society and there is something very Tarkovsky about the image composition.

8.7/10

Hollow Man (2000)

Yes I was pleasantly surprised by this also not knowing what to expect going in. Good film.

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Don't Look Up (2021)

As a satire, it takes broad swipes at a lot of different things - politics, denialists, big data, tech companies, social media, tv news - and broadly hits them. Some of it is a little obvious - anyone used to the sharper, darker Black Mirror might find themselves wanting a bit more, but it's hardly a surprise it stretches itself a bit thin over two hours and 18 minutes. There are a whole range of human responses that might happen to an event like this that aren't really explored, or are glossed over, in favour of pursuing the main joke. At times I wasn't sure whether the very US-centric-ness was part of a parody of disaster films like Independence Day, or a trap the film itself falls into - perhaps a bit of both. Leonardo di Caprio and Jennifer Lawrence are engaging as the lead characters. Cate Blanchett is very good in this - better than her femme fatale in Nightmare Alley. Mark Rylance is a bit too much as the Musk-like inventor/businessman.

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Just saw House of Gucci. I'd give it a 8/10, but I think it should have gotten more Oscar nominations, like Leto, Gaga, adapted screenplay, come on, there's a lot of substance there...

GaGa and Leto deserve nominations, I don't know about the screenplay

My crush on Andre Braugher meant that my teenage self liked this film, but yeah, it's not the best.

Not sure if I lasted 30 minutes. IMO it was pretentious and plodding. The acting was fine, but like you say, couldn't get with the screen play.

The Vault, 2021

A crew of treasure hunters including captain Walter (Liam Cunningham), daring diver James (Sam Riley), slight-of-hand expert Lorraine (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey), hacker Klaus (Axel Stein), and reliable Simon (Luis Tosar) have an amazing find grabbed out from under them by the Spanish government. Determined to reclaim their prize before anyone can realize that the small treasure points toward a much bigger one, the group recruits college-aged genius Thom (Freddie Highmore) to help them figure out how to break into an impossible vault.

This is an easy, breazy heist movie that was plenty enjoyable if a bit rote.

There's not much new ground covered here in terms of heist films. You've seen this all before: Lorraine infiltrating the bank to do some recon work and having to think fast to avoid being caught; the crew having to figure out how they'll trick the vault's elaborate security; a heist sequence involving ziplines and collapsable ladders and elevator shafts. But the film does a competent job with these familiar elements, and there is a decent enough degree of momentum to keep things moving along.

The cast is pretty good. I always struggle with Cunningham as a good guy after his turn in Dog Soldiers. Riley is, as always, a solid presence. Highmore is a likable lead as the fresh-faced, optimistic boy genius. Aside from being distracted by some really awful hair/wig choices, Berges-Frisbey is good as the con artist and love interest.

Aside from the familiarity of the elements, I don't really have much to criticize per se. It was a fun watch that cruises along as a decent film without ever really trying to be a great one. The setpieces are all relatively engaging. This movie is a Chipotle burrito. It's not great, but it's fine for what it is.

Recommended if you want something a bit thrilling but with relatively low stakes.

There’s like 4 movies on Netflix called The Vault. Is this the one with James Franco?

huh?????

Ready Player One




I tried not to like this movie because its' foundation was nothing more than "Easter Eggs".

The director (hey S.S.) knew this and went with it.

A bit lazy to me all things considered.

If I ignore all of that:


There is some really great acting in this film.

It is like using alcohol to entice an alcoholic and then giving them more just to see what happens.

I kind of enjoyed this movie.

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It's funny I had the opposite experience, I went in trying to like it and thought it was one of the worst movies I've seen in years. I definitely agree with your "lazy" sentiment. There's barely a script and what there is is just terrible. I kept asking myself, "Am I really even seeing what it seems I'm seeing?! The villain's password is on a yellow post-it note on his chair?! You can open the cell you're imprisoned in from the inside?! What the hell is going on here?!" That's about as lazy as I can remember ever seeing in a film.

By The cover art can or could be obtained from IMP Awards or Miramax Films., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30130367

Gangs of New York - (2002)

It took me a while. Just about 20 years - I guess it's going to be the same with The Wolf of Wall Street - I still haven't seen that. Some Martin Scorsese films just don't grab me, though I do want to see The Irishman (all 3 and a half hours of it.) Anyway, Gangs of New York didn't end up being a huge revelation to me - it was pretty much what I expected, and as expected the best I got out of it was the interesting and palpably violent Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting character. That's after such a promising introduction to the 'almost comic book' world of early New York with it's various criminal gangs and brutal gang wars. The way they start out, I thought they might be friendly contests of strength until everyone started dying and getting hacked to pieces. The absurdity fades in and out - such as the warring fire brigades which end up fighting each other while fires blaze out of control (for the purpose of looting.) Interesting little historical anecdotes get sprinkled into what is your stock standard revenge story - it's just the way you make a film which deals with this kind of curiosity (for Titanic it was your stock standard love triangle.) I was fascinated in every historical fact, but the framework was less interesting. With $100 million at your disposal however, the look and feel of everything is impressive and felt particularly authentic.

7/10

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Rocks (2019)

Yeah, it also took me about 20 years to try this out and I didn't make it. Like you say, it was what I thought it was and, like most of post-80s Scorsese, it just didn't hold my interest at all.

Hated this movie. Tried a couple of times, but didn’t get very far.

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