Rate the Last Film You Watched

War and Peace Poster.jpg


War and Peace (1965) This goliath of a film is probably the one of if not the greatest epic of all time. I don't think we will ever see a film on this scale ever again. If you don't enjoy long films I wouldn't recommend it but if your like me and enjoy longer films its worth the watch just for its sheer scale. The battle scenes are a favourite of mine, the only downside I found was sometimes it can be a little hard to follow what's going on. 8/10

Watched via the Criterion Collection Blu Ray. Picture quality is some what sporadic due to poorer Soviet film stock along with the restoration using multiple partial 35mm negatives from various archives of varying levels of quality.
 
I watched the Banshees of Inisherin the other day and it is a very weird film. I was expecting a bit more comedy, but much like when I watched Naked by Mike Leigh (also stated comedy) I found it far more bleak than comedic.

The time was well spent, certainly. The ideas only really become fully realised towards the end. It's something that as you're watching it, it is challenging, but by the end you realise everything and you feel satisfied.

Dark, historic, real, and very Irish.
 
My Fathers Dragon

When it comes down to the quality of a narrative, sometimes we see some really good stories, sometimes we see bad ones, sometimes ones in between and sometimes we see stories that entice you with one story only to switch to another; this is an example of the last case.

The first 20 minutes are fantastic, they set up a story that would have been very interesting indeed, covering how a young boy (Elmer) must start a business in a recession and is told to rescue none other than a dragon to help him start off a show that will help him earn enough money to start said business, this could have made for a very interesting story indeed and I genuinely believed that this was how it was going to go, it would have been very interesting to see how they handled it and I could trust that Cartoon Saloon had the capacity to tell a story like this well; alas it did not go this way, instead we got a film that was alright but nowhere near as good as it could have been.

The narrative started to lose it's way when Boris (the dragon) uttered his first lines, for the next 40 or so minutes, he was very annoying, (though thankfully not as much as B.E.N from Treasure Planet) at least at one point he decided to make a fart joke and he just holds the film back; that is until that 40 minute mark is up, afterwards, things start to get better, he gets less annoying (or maybe I've just gotten used to him by that point) and by that point I had come to terms with the fact that the story being told is different to the one I was led to expect; it's not bad by any means, in fact it's quite a good fantasy narrative, but it mostly threw away the more mature themes that it was going for in the beginning, which is a shame.

The art direction, as usual from Cartoon Saloon, is fantastic and very distinctive, one could look at this style and tell that it is their style, the animation quality is really good as well, even the not so great parts are made at least watchable by this fact, it's clear that they have come a long way since The Secret of Kells back in 2009 in this regard and the climax has all the magic that one can expect from Cartoon Saloon.

All in all I think this film is alright but it was setting itself up to be much better than it was, by the time Elmer was going to the island I was really invested but it took a while to regain my investment after Boris first started with his silly scenanigans, the climax to the story we got was really good but it feels like their are two stories, while the one on the island is generally complete, the one back in the city feels unfinished and at least one of the characters act out of character after Elmer gets back to the city, the story we got is pretty good but it could have been so much better.

Score 7/10
 
Last edited:
Superman

I watched this years and years ago when I was a kid - I really couldn't remember anything about it other than the usual obvious Superman stuff. I've had the BD set hanging around for ages, so I decided it was finally time to watch it!

It's a great movie. Christopher Reeve is excellent as both Clark Kent and Superman - he's perfect in both roles and actually makes it believable that people don't realise they're the same man. His chemistry with Margot Kidder's Lois is wonderful and Gene Hackman is fantastic as Luthor too.

The story is pretty simple stuff, but it's very easy to enjoy. There are a lot of exciting parts and a lot of nice funny bits too.

Considering the age of the movie, I was impressed by how well it aged. Most of the effects are still very impressive. There was only one part that looked bad (young Clark racing the train) - it was pretty awful, but not enough to spoil the film!
 
Evil Dead 2

View attachment 26764

Yes the legends were true, this was a much better film than the first. I loved it, great combination of cheese and gore. If I had one complaint it would be the short "retelling" of the first movie was entirely unecessary. It would have been better if they just used a clip of the ending and used it as the intro instead. Would have flowed much smoother imo.

EDIT: It seems Army of Darkness isn't up for streaming anywhere or has a 4k release. It's a pity as that would have round things out nicely.
There is a 4K release of AOD on the Scream Factory label
 
Yasha (1985)

Reformed ex-Yakuza Ken Takakura finds his hard but peaceful existence as a small-town fisherman thrown into turmoil when a flashy former hostess and her drug runner boyfriend (Yuko Tanaka and Takeshi Kitano) take over the local tavern. Despite sounding like the setup for a scrubby action movie, this is actually a slow, but elegant and engaging drama, bathed in the cool blues and greys of a melancholy winter. Its tendency to avoid any obvious catharsis may frustrate some viewers, and it may be a little diminished amongst Takakura's other similar films that dominated his later career, but otherwise I find it hard to fault. If you're in the right frame of mind, this is an absorbing, and ultimately rewarding, character study.
 
Zack Snyder's Justice League

This might be my favorite super hero movie ever now. I'm so happy I waited to see it instead of letting all the negativity of the internet influence me. I was certainly skeptical straight up buying the 4k and even more so when I started it up, but in the end I found a new favorite I think. Though with a run time of 4 hours it will be a hard rewatch lol.
 
Watched Minority Report because it was on telly.

It holds up well, but have to say seeing Collin Farrel in such a role in 2022 is slightly comedic.

Weird to think that Spielberg directed it. Not his usual thing; wish he actually explored this sort of dark sci-fi a bit more.
 
Have you seen Spielberg’s War of the Worlds?
Yes I have and I actually forgot that was him as well. He's done a lot hasn't he?

War of the Worlds was really good when I first saw it when I was younger, but I think Minority Report is a bit better. I also have some bias on war of the worlds because I really like the source material and am a little bit sour that we have not had a very good victorian era movie of it.

And speaking of Spielberg, I'm not sure if I want to see Fabelmans in the cinema or not. It got a nice critic reception, but I also read a review that was negative; saying it was just a bit cliche and I fear that I may feel the same way about it
 
I've watched most of Spielberg's works over the past few months (in prep for The Fabelmans but also seeing John Williams in concert in Milan) and I really think that, as an artist, he is probably one of the most misunderstood in cinema today.His technical abilities as a director were never really in question, but has never been more evident than it was on West Side Story a couple of years ago which really demonstrated his total mastery of blocking and camera movement. However, he tends to be thought of as a sentimentalist but you'd be hard pressed to find a true happy ending in any of his films - and when they do appear, they tend to be bittersweet, intercut with grief or loss.

The Fabelmans is one of the more interesting 'semi-autobiographical' type films I've seen; Spielberg sees his art as something that has had a corrosive effect on his personal relationships and nods to how the artform can inflict trauma either by exposing truth (he discovers his mother's affair when editing footage he filmed for a home movie) or by distorting it (he films his anti-semitic high school bully in the same manner that Leni Riefenstahl filmed Aryan bodies for the Nazis). It's not your typical love-letter to the medium.
 
he tends to be thought of as a sentimentalist but you'd be hard pressed to find a true happy ending in any of his films
I think that perception comes more from how he emphasises the vulnerability and sympathetic aspects of characters, even in something as dark and violent as Munich. It's one of the strengths of his storytelling style, really, but it does make him a target for cynics. To be fair, he does lay it on a bit thick sometimes.
 
Mad God
A crowd-funded, stop-motion horror film 30 years in the making. Industry legend Phil Tippett does a lot of real cool things with this vision of a world gone insane. Combining his decades of experience with a bunch of random junk to create a really impressive work of animation without voice acting that's all his own. The complete freedom to make a horror film completely his own is something he fully embraces to shows off just on skilled he is.

That said I didn't really care of it. That's definitely my fault for watching it in the wrong mood and was so exhausted I needed to take a nap 45 minutes in. But also I was more taken with the animation than the horror. There was maybe on two things that made me uncomfortable despite being a massive coward. The light story was enjoyable to put the puzzle out but feels like it is padded out with some stuff that really kills the momentum. It's mostly the extended live action sequences in the dead centre of the film that hurts it. But it's still recommended for the pure novelty of seeing a stop-motion film like this with all these different locations and monsters. Also it's a horror product that doesn't rely on sudden noise so I respect that a lot.

Score: N/A (Don't watch when too tired to think)
 
Watched recently Fulcis The Psychic & Demonia
the former not really violent as expected but good (the film is a 15 cert but because of trailers for The Beyond & The New York Ripper it’s an 18 on cover) - pathetic! The latter is good but not one of Fulcis best
The Sentinel is an underrated film from Michael Winner which has a story along the lines though not as gory as The Beyond
Wax Mask is Sergio Stivalettis debut feature from early nineties and a good and gory horror it is - all credit to Severin for the release
Fantacide is a Brit horror comedy I’ve seen before and definitely not one for the cancel culture brigade- I bought the blu ray with extra film etc some time ago and has no chance of being released uncut in the UK hence the self distribution from writer/director Shane Mather
Aussie martial arts thriller and non politically correct with occasionally funny dialogue but very entertaining The Man From Hong Kong
 
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Saw this film in the cinema this evening (making use of some freebie cinema tickets I get via my bank). Quite good in my eyes, enough time has passed since the last movie.

Although if it wasn't for the free cinema tickets I wouldn't have saw it in the cinema, not for £14 each!
 
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Saw this film in the cinema this evening (making use of some freebie cinema tickets I get via my bank). Quite good in my eyes, enough time has passed since the last movie.

Although if it wasn't for the free cinema tickets I wouldn't have saw it in the cinema, not for £14 each!

I saw this tonight too (with a friend but it was my suggestion) I really enjoyed it :)
 
I tried to watch Dr Zhivago because it kept coming up for no reason and it felt like the universe was telling me to watch it

well maybe it wasn't at all because i had no idea what the hell was happening and everybody looked the same so i had to stop after 90 minutes and eat some food instead
 
RRR

RRReally good

For just shy of a year I had mostly given up on live action, between late March 2022 and a couple of days ago, I had only watched a handful of live action stuff; this is largely down to the fact that all too many modern live action movies are dull, soulless rubbish that are either too afraid to have any fun or pick completely the wrong times to have it; a description that does not in any way fit this absolute gem, in fact, this is quite possibly the best live action film I have seen since literally when the first Iron Man film came out all the way back in 2008.

First off it's worth noting that I have never seen an Indian film before so this film does have the first film advantage, just as... prepare for it... Sword Art Online had the first anime advantage for me, only now I am far more jaded than I was when I watched that old chestnut so I have a lot more confidence that this one will stand my test of time for numerous reasons.

First off, one of the things that is really living in my head and paying it's rent in full is the soundtrack, it absolutely slaps, I can't think of any bad tracks in this film, a far cry from modern western live action productions, the tone of these tracks range from upbeat and jolly to dark and somber, all while maintaining a great melody to them which, in my opinion, is the most important part of any soundtrack; in fact, this may be the best use of music since Shrek 2, it's not quite on that level but it's pretty close.

Then there's the fight choreography, it's honestly some of the best I've seen, and I've seen Kung Fu Panda (fun fact, acording to what I've read on Wikipedia, Kung Fu Panda is one of S. S. Rajamouli's favourite films as listed in a Sight and Sound poll, no wonder the choreography is so good).
The action here is over the top in a really good way, there's always something new in every set piece, there is an energy to all the action set pieces that go far beyond the explosions are cool mentality, though there's plenty of explosions as well here, there's also a narrative drive to the action; it manages to both be absolutely epic and tell a story at the exact same time.

Speaking of the story, it's really good, it largely centers around two protagonists who are seemingly at opposite ends of society, one being an officer for the British and one being a guardian of the Gond tribe who is on a mission to rescue a girl who the British had abducted, going into too much detail will likely spoil what happens so I won't mention where the story goes but let's just say it was not what I was expecting.
Also I counted what appeared to be no less than 3 climax worthy scenes, one really cool scene I saw in a review, I literally thought was near the end but it turned out to be in the middle of the film.

It's not entirely perfect though, the English performances are not great, personally I didn't mind it myself as I vastly prefer how the English actors perform here to the hushed whisper acting of western movies but your mileage may vary; also some of the scenes are a fair bit slower than others, these are still more interesting than most western flicks but the best scenes set up a really high standard for this movie that, to be fair, cannot be reached at all times; with that said the issues this film has are either not enough of a issue for me or just don't bother me personally though it will vary from person to person.

Despite a few hiccups, I genuinely think this is one of the best live action movies I've seen, vastly superior to all too many of them, a great film that manages to impress me despite my jadedness at 99% of media, it has managed to wow me in ways that I have not seen in too long, while the art of great filmmaking seems to be lost on all too many western studios, this film proves that it is as robust as ever in India.

Score 10/10
 
Last edited:
Back
Top