Rate the Last Film You Watched

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Parasite (Gisaengchung [기생충]) is a 2019 South Korean film directed by Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Okja). First things first, I would like to thank ODEON for screening the film as part of their Unseen screening event, which is where you can watch an early film which is a mystery screening! Parasite is one of my most anticipated films of the year because of its unique premise and being a fan of the director's film The Host (a monster drama/thriller released back in 2006). After watching the film, I can definitely say that this film is well derserving of its praise. The story is great, the characters were interesting, the tone is spot on and the ending is very satisfying to watch. The director himself requested folks to watch the film without knowing much of the story (but if you are desperate to see at least a trailer, check the one below and just that one). I am very happy to be able to watch the film and I hope that everyone is able to check it out.

Parasite is coming to UK cinemas in February 2020 and has been acquired by distributors Curzon Artificial Eye and Studio Canal.

5/5

 
Saint Young Men
Really charming, fun, irreverent film.
Basically Jesus and Buddha decide to have some time off being religious idols and decide to flat share in Japan. If there is a manga of this then I'm guessing it's a 4 panel comic as that's very much the nature of this film. Little comedic skits that form larger sketches in a slice of life comedy. The twist being you have Jesus and Buddha doing the things we normally see teenagers do like going to a theme park, shopping for deals, visiting the bath house etc.

The highlight of the movie for me was a scene in the public sauna where Jesus inadvertently becomes friends with a yakuza over their shared history of being betrayed and incarcerated. While Buddha is left to feel the icy tension in the rest of the room. it was very silly but also very funny.

The animation was light and free to go with out protagonists friendly attitudes. At 90mins it breezes by. I watched it in Spanish and the dub was good and easy to follow. No idea if an English version exists but if one was released over here I'd want to check it out.
8/10
 
Saint Young Men
Really charming, fun, irreverent film.
Basically Jesus and Buddha decide to have some time off being religious idols and decide to flat share in Japan. If there is a manga of this then I'm guessing it's a 4 panel comic as that's very much the nature of this film. Little comedic skits that form larger sketches in a slice of life comedy. The twist being you have Jesus and Buddha doing the things we normally see teenagers do like going to a theme park, shopping for deals, visiting the bath house etc.

The highlight of the movie for me was a scene in the public sauna where Jesus inadvertently becomes friends with a yakuza over their shared history of being betrayed and incarcerated. While Buddha is left to feel the icy tension in the rest of the room. it was very silly but also very funny.

The animation was light and free to go with out protagonists friendly attitudes. At 90mins it breezes by. I watched it in Spanish and the dub was good and easy to follow. No idea if an English version exists but if one was released over here I'd want to check it out.
8/10
I have the first volume of the manga for this to review, looking forward to it.
 
EL8gQrXXUAA7UQ9

Parasite (Gisaengchung [기생충]) is a 2019 South Korean film directed by Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Okja). First things first, I would like to thank ODEON for screening the film as part of their Unseen screening event, which is where you can watch an early film which is a mystery screening! Parasite is one of my most anticipated films of the year because of its unique premise and being a fan of the director's film The Host (a monster drama/thriller released back in 2006). After watching the film, I can definitely say that this film is well derserving of its praise. The story is great, the characters were interesting, the tone is spot on and the ending is very satisfying to watch. The director himself requested folks to watch the film without knowing much of the story (but if you are desperate to see at least a trailer, check the one below and just that one). I am very happy to be able to watch the film and I hope that everyone is able to check it out.

Parasite is coming to UK cinemas in February 2020 and has been acquired by distributors Curzon Artificial Eye and Studio Canal.

5/5

It's been announced its on the nomination shortlist for the best international film oscar.
 
The Rise of Skywalker

Really enjoyed it. Some great twists and turns. Great acting and effects.

Did a triple bill screening of episode 7, 8 and 9. Initial reaction is that the new one is the best one but I like all 3.
 
@WMD Disney put warnings out for strobing effects in the new Star Wars. Its probably just to cover themselves after Incredibles 2, but did you notice anything stand out in that area? Its sort of making me avoid it at the moment 😕
 
@WMD Disney put warnings out for strobing effects in the new Star Wars. Its probably just to cover themselves after Incredibles 2, but did you notice anything stand out in that area? Its sort of making me avoid it at the moment 😕
Err hard to say in a way. I wouldn't say theres much full on strobe though there is some. But there is quite a lot of high contrast light effects (lasers/lightsabers etc being used in dark places)
 
Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

I'm going to need to see this at least once more before I make up my mind on it, mainly since some of it was so ludicrously fast paced I have trouble remembering what I saw. My initial reaction though is one of frustration - I liked the way the story went, but I didn't particularly like a lot of the direction choices. I've said before that I'm of the opinion Abrams is massively overrated as a director, and TRoS just reinforced that for me. Scenes and story elements that should have had build-up and weight to them were rushed through at a mile a minute, and time that could have been spent making those scenes more impactful was wasted on introducing at least three new characters that had, as far as I can tell, no good reason to exist within the film's plot.

On this particular point, I feel like my fear the trilogy would end up being a tug of war of visions between Abrams and Johnson was well founded as rather than make use of Rose, or in fact any of the character development Finn or Poe received in TLJ, Abrams seems to have wanted to try and develop these characters via his own, new characters. I use the word "try" because these new relationships are so rushed and shallow they have very little impact, and therefore very little point. Would the film have been any different without Zorii or Jannah (whose name I had to look up) or utterly pointless new droid D-0? No. Even Richard E. Grant, who I love, was not a necessary addition to the cast at all. All the time wasted on these characters could instead have been spent on some longer, more thoughtful and less ADHD scenes with those the audience already knows and cares about or, I dunno, making the reintroduction of Palpatine a bit more ominous than "So Kylo found this not-holocron (because if we call it a holocron we might have to explain what a holocron is and that's five seconds we can't afford to cut from this super-cool scene of the Millennium Falcon doing about ten hyperspace jumps in as many seconds) somewhere and hooked it up to his ship somehow and now here's Palpatine". About two minutes into the film I was already mad. This should have had build up. It should have been ominous and chilling. It's the reintroduction of the sodding Emperor, but it felt more like it belonged in a YouTube recap of a film than in an actual film.

Another directorial choice I thought poor was the use of Carrie Fisher's unused footage, shoehorned into very obviously different contexts than was originally intended, with the resulting "dialogue" between Leia and the other characters sounding absolutely woeful.

If it sounds like I hated it, I didn't. As a servant of the Dark Side I'm just better at articulating my hate and anger. All of the Rey/Kylo parts of the film were good and the main plot was fine, Palpatine's return, while initially underwhelming, proved very good by the end because he's an actually intimidating villain - For a moment, I did actually contemplate that he might be about to win and that this trilogy might be heading for a downer ending (as much as I would genuinely have loved to have seen that it's probably a bit too much of a risk as far as general audiences are concerned) and the fact that I even considered that a possibility, no matter how incredibly slim, shows something went right. And the very end, along with Kylo's vision of Han, did actually make me a bit emotional.

So, well done, I guess, Disney and Lucasfilm, I didn't totally hate it. But please give the next trilogy to Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, because The Mandalorian is probably the best live action Star Wars since the Original Trilogy.
 
More so than the others?
I think so yeah. Theres a section of the film set in a particularly dark place so when things kick off its maybe more jarring in that sense. As @ayase said above it's a very fast paced film which probably doesn't help with the strobe type effects in the film.

I have no real sense of where the cut off for an epileptic reaction might be. It's not like being in a club with a full on strobe light but I'd say its higher risk than episodes 7 and 8
 
The Rise of Skywalker is not just a bad film, but a bad film that commits the crime of going out of its way to undermine its predecessor - the best film in the entire Star Wars saga - presumably in an attempt to please a vocal minority of man-babies who wouldn't even put a dent in the box office if they somehow managed to pull off a coordinated boycott.

Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley give the best performances of the Star Wars saga, but that isn't enough to rescue it from a preposterous storyline that seems cobbled together from the most fervent nonsense on [insert fanfiction website here] that's delivered to us through 2 1/2 hours of pure exposition punctuated by fetch quests. I left feeling like I gained nothing from actually watching the film that I wouldn't have got from reading the plot synopsis on Wikipedia.

I laughed out loud at the nonsense in the opening crawl and it didn't get much better from that.

I saw it as part of the Cineworld triple-bill last night and seeing it straight after the Force Awakens / Last Jedi diptych just reinforced how lackadaisical this one is. The Force Awakens may march to the same beat as A New Hope, but it works because of the very nature of the monomyth - and because it was refreshing to see what was a high quality Star Wars film 35 years after the last proper good one. It was safe, but necessarily so. The Last Jedi is bold, it pushes the series forward into new territory and recognises that they can't just keep putting a new lick of paint on the original trilogy if it is to survive commercially or artistically. 'The past should die' - pandering to nostalgia is the current pox on cinema and the Walt Disney company in particular. I was already fearful based on the title that The Rise of Skywalker wouldn't continue this train of thought; the first line of the crawl lets you know that they didn't just stop that train, they blew it up completely.

Of other films I watched this week, Greta Gerwig's Little Women is a masterclass in re-adapting a classic novel for the screen in 2019 and features awards-worthy performances from Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh (yes, another one), and Timothee Chalamet.

Jojo Rabbit is worth it for one particular Python-esque scene with Stephen Merchant and is otherwise fitfully funny, but is exactly the kind of film you'd imagine a filmmaker who said that he'd never before seen a film that shows the experience of children during wartime. Seeing Come and See, Ivan's Childhood, Forbidden Games, Grave of the Fireflies, Germany Year Zero, Empire of the Sun, etc. might not be a requirement to making Thor Ragnarok but having an awareness of them before making a film about a young Nazi finding a Jew in wartime Berlin probably is.
 
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"So Kylo found this not-holocron (because if we call it a holocron we might have to explain what a holocron is and that's five seconds we can't afford to cut from this super-cool scene of the Millennium Falcon doing about ten hyperspace jumps in as many seconds) somewhere and hooked it up to his ship somehow and now here's Palpatine"
When Disney acquired Lucasfilm they retconned most of the books deeming them non-cannon then ripped them off to do something similar in the films, but was Dark Empire retconned too? That was Dark Horse years ago.
 
When Disney acquired Lucasfilm they retconned most of the books deeming them non-cannon then ripped them off to do something similar in the films, but was Dark Empire retconned too? That was Dark Horse years ago.
With the specific exception of The Clone Wars animated series and the comics that finished off some of its unfinished storylines, everything else in the EU was rendered no longer canon. The Dark Empire influences on TRoS are pretty obvious, another one of the things that annoys me about Abrams is that he never seems to mention the ideas his films have basically lifted wholesale from the EU. I’m not bothered that they do it, I think tearing down the EU to rebuild it in a more coherent fashion was the right choice, and has led to some great things like the new Thrawn content in Rebels and Zahn’s new books (which I think are improvements over the originals) but Filoni, by contrast, has been very open about the fact he wanted to bring in things from the EU for Rebels. Abrams rarely mentions it, one suspects because after you’d removed all the material drawn from or at least inspired by the EU in his films, there wouldn’t be a whole lot left. Original, Mr. Abrams is not.
its predecessor - the best film in the entire Star Wars saga
I mean, I was one of that film’s defenders, (particularly against the stupid, paranoid culture war arguments) but let’s not go overboard. It did still have some significant flaws. But you’re not wrong that it was significantly better directed. There are scenes from TLJ that are going to stay with me, it wasn’t afraid to have two characters just sit and talk for a while (and that’s why its character development succeeded where TRoS’ failed so miserably) or let the camera linger a while and take things in. TRoS really does feel like it was made for (or by) someone with ADHD who starts stamping their feet if there isn’t some action or a one-liner being delivered every few seconds.
 
Eh, I've never thought of Empire Strikes Back or Star Wars (I presume you're referring to one of them) to be impressive filmmaking feats. Don't get me wrong, I think they're great films, but there's no single aspect of them that wasn't done as well or better elsewhere. The films transcend to something greater than the sum of their parts, but I do think that the direction is pretty by-the numbers and the acting is...well apart from Harrison Ford, it's not great. There's nothing formally impressive about them, and they also had the benefit of being first - being able to set the narrative that future entries had to recognise. The Last Jedi and, to a certain extent, The Force Awakens introduces greater complexity and I think, manages to pull it off while benefitting from more accomplished direction and a more competent lead cast.

As for my thoughts on the rest of the Star Wars series, I think Return of the Jedi is pretty awful and a huge step down from Empire (I suppose Abrams managed to mirror this one too!). As for the Prequel Trilogy, well 😆 On rewatch, I actually don't mind them too much now but only if I get into the frame of mind that the prequels are, essentially, Star Wars' Old Testament with deliberately stilted dialogue etc. The Phantom Menace is guff, but the duel with Darth Maul is genuinely spectacular to watch. Attack of the Clones is utterly horrendous - it's the film that needs to focus on developing Anakin's character so that he can believably become Vader and drive the narrative forward. It fails on every level. Well, almost. It's worth watching for Christopher Lee with a lightsaber. Revenge of the Sith suffers primarily because of the mistakes made in the previous film - we need to believe in the Anakin/Padme romance, we need to care deeply about these characters. And we don't.
 
I do think I hate it. For me it binned all the cool ideas and evolutions TLJ did for nah back to old Good Vs Evil sorry that film upset you guys we are gonna pretend it never happened. Everyone having a love interest shoe horned in was bizarre I don’t think any of the characters will reach Leia and Han levels of actual romance. Palaptine being all sith was bizarre and weird and stupid. I just hated the character it was a step back and was like sorry we need to rely on prior films to justify our existence. For me it feels pointless and as this is the end it makes this whole trilogy feel pointless but for me the biggest sin it does is devalue Darth Vader’s sacrifice in VI one of the best redemption moments I know of. It’s also full of fanservice which is pointless it feels this film is to correct all the moaning about TLJ and if you liked that film you will have to suck up this film being crap and devaluing the only film that tried to evolve Star Wars past good and evil. As nah sorry Johnson it is good or evil no in between it’s Star Wars bitch.
 
I've enjoyed all 3 of the trilogy. As a big fan of Clone Wars and the later seasons of Rebels I really got into the myth expansion of the force. Rebels in particular did some really wierd, interesting stuff with the emperor and the force so I really appreciated what Rise of Skywalker was doing on that front. It was also a fun and energetic movie.

For me the one properly missed opportunity was that the movie decided to not involve Rose. A character I really liked in Last Jedi.
With the introduction of other First Order deserters there was a real opportunity to explore Finn by placing him in a love triangle. Torn between the one he has a shared present with a d the one he has a shared past with. If hed then ended up with Rose it would've affirmed its who we become that's important not our past. Which wouldve tied in really nicely with both Last Jedi and Rei being a Palpatine.
 
Eh, I've never thought of Empire Strikes Back or Star Wars (I presume you're referring to one of them) to be impressive filmmaking feats. Don't get me wrong, I think they're great films, but there's no single aspect of them that wasn't done as well or better elsewhere.
I think that's true of all SW films, TLJ included. Now, I love Star Wars and I enjoyed TLJ a lot, but I wouldn't necessarily say it was all that revolutionary - Unless even some measure of originality is now revolutionary (which may actually be the case, not just in Star Wars but in terms of entertainment media in general - A sad state of affairs for sure, but this is what we get when huge corporations like Disney are in charge of such a large percentage of it. Risk isn't palatable to shareholders, so playing it safe and giving people what they want seems to be the way).

Star Wars has never been perfect, none of the films have been masterpieces. I enjoy the expansive world and its characters first and foremost (as I do with say, Gundam and its similarly variable quality output) and if they feel engaging to me, I'm willing to overlook some of the production flaws - I'm looking for fantasy escapism and entertainment rather than high art. But as with any film, I have my preferences when it comes to direction and script. Lucas is a terrible dialogue writer, no arguments there, but I don't think he's a bad director and personally I'm of the opinion he's a good ideas man - It's his universe after all. When I consider the prequels, I think if someone else with a better idea of how humans actually communicate (sorry George, but I'm not convinced you've ever actually had a normal conversation) had been writing the characters' lines they would have seemed a whole lot better.

Abrams on the other hand, I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion is just a bad director, or at least not one whose style appeals to me. It's too frantic, it doesn't spend enough time on anything and while the dialogue in his Star Wars films hasn't been Lucas level, that's probably because the characters barely have anything but the shallowest plot advancing or cliche things to say. Johnson actually made the new characters interesting in TLJ. Abrams ignored all that in TRoS. In TRoS we learn (through a new character who has no time to be developed themselves) that Poe used to be a smuggler... and? TLJ developed him as a hotheaded wannabe leader who didn't actually have the wisdom to lead. He learned. He grew. That had plot relevance. In TLJ Finn learned he doesn't just have to see himself as a tool but has value as an individual. That made him grow as a character. In TRoS he learns (through a new character who has no time to be developed themselves) there are other Stormtroopers who deserted like him... and? Backstory that has no effect on the plot or how the character behaves is pointless and is not a substitute for development. As @WMD mentioned, Rose was totally wasted. Let's establish a new character, give her depth and motivation and then just relegate her to a side character. Great. Even Finn and Poe didn't recieve particularly satisfying endings - It was Rey and Kylo's film, and if it had just been their film centred on them it probably would have been better. All the moments in the film I genuinely enjoyed were theirs.

I think if we've learned anything, and if there's something I hope Lucasfilm will learn, it's that giving the middle film of a trilogy to a different director than the first and last films is a stupid thing to do. I think it's fairly obvious Abrams simply decided to press on with his own ideas and largely ignore Johnson's, which has resulted in a film with way too many poorly developed ideas and characters crammed into far too short a runtime. If Abrams had done all three, perhaps TRoS would have been better. But then TLJ probably wouldn't have been as good.
 
In summary, its fine but I'm not a fan. 5/10

First, what I liked:
  • A good looking well-made movie with great action scenes.
  • Great chemistry and banter between the three main protagonists.
  • Some of C3-PO's funniest moments in years.
  • Leia's integration was... decent.
  • All the acting is great, Adam Driver in particular is still mesmerising.
  • Chewie gets a medal!

Mixed on:
  • Kylo's redemption... still need to process this,maybe when the film is out on Blu-Ray and watch all theret to make up my mind.

and what I didn't like/hated:


  • Rey’s backstory retcon. Go back and watch that reveal in TLJ. Kylo didn’t tell her she was nobody, she came to the realisation herself. Now he’s claiming he lied to her about a thing he didn’t even tell her?! It’s a completely jarring change, adds no weight to proceedings and continues the franchise’s obsession with bloodlines, which baffles me.
  • And not in a billion years did I ever imagine Palpatine wanting to reproduce’
  • The constant plot conviniences. Star Wars can get away with this to an extent with the ‘will of the forcel get-out but this was too much.
  • Palpatine is now the central bad guy again and they didn’t justify it to me and just came off as contrived, especially witg him physically being there as some weird zombie. Felt like something out of a video game.
  • Palpatine’s forces? Where did they come from? Why did he wait around this whole time?
  • Planet destroying Star Destroyers? Real head spinning excalation!
  • Though pretty, the final battle was prequel levels of overblown.
  • Lando must have some sort of magical powers too because he gets those reinforcements bafflingly quick.
  • A lot of ‘since when?’ moments. Luke was searching for all these plot McGuffins? Everyone seems to know a heck of a lot about the Sith? Luke and Leia knew who Rey was all along?!
  • jJ didn’t seem to understand the I portance if Lnuke’s actions in the last movie at all.
  • Finn completely loses interest in Rose despite all they went tbrough in TLJ, but now his Rey crush is back?

I don.t like using this expression but...fanfiction, it really did.

Though, one really crass thought that came into my head towards the end:

When Kylo is over her dead body, for one second my mind said:

'Is he gonna **** her back to life?'

i know! Terrible! But maybe there's a part of me that saw Kylo as tbe kind of person who might do that!

If you want to burn me for that, I understand!
 
Palpatine’s forces? Where did they come from? Why did he wait around this whole time?
Just like they didn't actually call the obvious Sith holocrons holocrons, I get the feeling this was the Star Forge in all but name (another EU idea) or at least that's what I'm going to presume until I'm told otherwise. That would actually make some degree of sense. More sense than Sheev managing to set up the galaxy's most efficient Star Destroyer production line and operate it non-stop in secret for 30 years anyway.
Lando must have some sort of magical powers too because he gets those reinforcements bafflingly quick.
My friend and I joked that the people of the galaxy didn't actually mind the Empire, they just really hated Palpatine, accounting for the total lack of support for the Resistance in TLJ turning into the overwhelming support in TRoS. I can't really think of any other way to explain that one.

I guess there's no way of knowing whether the TLJ stuff that was ignored was a result of it going against Abrams' own ideas or because of the backlash that film received from very vocal internet critics. I'm not really sure which possibility is worse. Neither pandering to the loud and whiny or director ego are particularly positive options.
 
It’s weird as iirc Coruscant for example was blown up in TFA, so that’s the capital in the prequels so the population might be quite down just by that.
And I think that’s the thing from Last Jedi that was binned I hate the most is Kylo becoming Vader again when his whole arc in TLJ is he is not his grandfather and he commits some mass murder and the fight with Luke to me at least made him irremediable yet J.J. didn’t want that so it’s time for ROTJ again and with weird new force powers. For me it makes me look forward to Johnson’s trilogy that will be far removed from these 9 films. As he was constrained by the mystery boxes in TFA which I think is why he basically bins them. So if he could write and direct a full trilogy they could be very different and interesting.
 
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