Last Film You've Seen

[Deleted member 13557]

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Considering the practicality universal praise this got, I went into this with high hopes and I really wanted to love it. I… like it?

I think would’ve liked this more if it was just a somewhat grounded family drama. Take away the super heroics but keep the plot outline. Verse jumping is a cool concept, but it never really got any more interesting to me past its initial introduction. Can’t knock the acting though, everyone was great. Solid 7/10.

 

[Ghost X]

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

Watchable film. Personally, almost feels like an alien experience watching a non-Marvel film at the cinema these days or something, so that's refreshing on its own (that's just a me thing, not that there aren't non-Marvel films available at the cinema, just a lack of people to see them with). It is good that it is a film everyone can enjoy also. There's some minor Easter eggs for the DnD folk to appreciate, which don't serve as a distraction. A couple of jokes got some big laughs from the crowd, but I'd have liked the film to be more funny. There were some good action sequences, to which I will always think "I wonder how this would've looked with practical effects". What I found distracting were some deus ex machinas and some unnecessary plot elements, but as said, the film is watchable. 3.4/5 stars.

Spoiler

The two jokes that got a laugh from the crowd being the guy dying from striking his head on a bathtub, and Chris Pine's distraction turned body horror-esque failure (which particularly cracked me up)

 

[Ghost X]

John Wick Chapter 4

Spoiler

My first JW in the cinemas. Ran out of movies to see when I needed one for Mother's Day, so picked it. The franchise is not my cup of tea. John is pretty much invincible, so there's no investment, and the fight scenes aren't that amazing. My favourite scene was probably the duel at the end, which I think was done well. I think the writing in some parts of the series is pretty good in general, specifically how they make friends become enemies and back again relatively convincingly, but that's my only praise. The film could have been a lot shorter. Lots of needless filler, which doesn't advance the plot. Just an excuse to have gunfights at different locations, which, given the aesthetics, can still feel repetitive across the franchise. 2.5/5 stars.

 

[Ghost X]

Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse

Very highly recommend...

Spoiler

...the first third or half of the movie or so, which had me thinking I was watching the best movie ever. There were moments where I was almost exploding out of the cinema chair in excitement (keyword: almost... as I was quite still, but inside... whew ). It then got a bit bogged down, but still a quality watch. I had forgotten it was a two-part film until the end also. Anyway, first mystery fraction of film: 5/5 stars. Rest of film: 3.5/5 stars.

 

[Rankles]

Beautifully animated and tells a good story. Would recommend giving it a try.

 

[Leafonthebreeze]

I'd like to, but everything I've heard seems like they gutted the original story, which still makes me cry (I re read it after the first trailer came out) so I don't know if I'd enjoy it.

 

[LNK]

John Wick Chapter 4

Spoiler

My first JW in the cinemas. Ran out of movies to see when I needed one for Mother's Day, so picked it. The franchise is not my cup of tea. John is pretty much invincible, so there's no investment, and the fight scenes aren't that amazing. My favourite scene was probably the duel at the end, which I think was done well. I think the writing in some parts of the series is pretty good in general, specifically how they make friends become enemies and back again relatively convincingly, but that's my only praise. The film could have been a lot shorter. Lots of needless filler, which doesn't advance the plot. Just an excuse to have gunfights at different locations, which, given the aesthetics, can still feel repetitive across the franchise. 2.5/5 stars.

I enjoyed the first two, then it just got repetitive and stale imo. I prefer the Man from Nowhere (korean movie)

 

[Rydeen]

Rocky IV
I saw it once before when I was little, and only remembered the training montage and "I must break you."

I am a sucker for the Rocky universe. I think it's better than III, which I wish did not exist. It is cheap in some notable ways (like why does the film want us to be on the side of putting his family through that for revenge), but I'm overall ok with it being a part of the lore. It's like, peak 80s and enjoyable. I felt that they created villains that were good out of such little dialogue, similar to Creed in I. And none of the existing characters were particularly OOC.

 

[Rankles]

I'd like to, but everything I've heard seems like they gutted the original story, which still makes me cry (I re read it after the first trailer came out) so I don't know if I'd enjoy it.

I’m unfamiliar with the original story tbh, just know that the movie was in developmental hell for years.

 

[Deleted member 13557]

THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD



Zombie classic. Horror/comedy with one of my favourite takes on the undead. Honestly think I’ve watched this more than any of the Romero films.

 

[Nandemoyasan]

It is certainly not the first time I've seen it, and it certainly will not be the last.

 

[Wol]

Dune

I don't know how did I sleep on this, but it has been a looong time since I've seen a movie so immersive. This is Lord of the Rings quality, superb casting, storytelling, sound, music... Entrancing. It won 6 Oscars for a reason. Never read the books but I'm already in love with this universe.

Beyond hyped for Part 2, definitely be watching on cinema this time.

 

[Deleted member 13557]

Been on a horror kick lately and ended up watching some New French Extremity films. Not for the faint of heart, lemme tell ya.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Godzilla Minus One

It's hard to overstate JUST how good this film is. It absolutely deserves its place at the top of the critically acclaimed Godzilla films, and it's one of those movies that's absolutely worth seeing in the theater if there's a showing you can get to. They've been expanding the number of locations in NA/EU and its unexpected success even as a limited screening is just really exciting to see for a Toho Godzilla film in general, let alone one that absolutely knocked it out of the park as solidly as this one has.



X

 

[Ghost X]

Yeah, I quite enjoyed the aesthetics of the film. The CGI wasn't a distraction. I particularly found most scenes where Godzilla was on land quite thrilling and engaging. Definitely an enjoyable watch as a whole.

Spoiler: My critique and rating

I felt some of the drama was a bit contrived, particularly when it came to when emotions were expressed, and those scenes tended to linger more than necessary. Aside from that, the human characters were written well, particularly in the first half, but my engagement with the human story aspect dipped a bit by the end, like the film was just going through the motions by that stage.

When Godzilla was pursuing in the water with his head and spikes above the water, he appears a bit cartoonish, though I suppose I was amused, so that's not necessarily a bad thing.

The Godzilla laser-charging thing is a bit cheesy, but the payoff was always rewarding (except for the last one where the laser wasn't fired, but I suppose the suspense was a decent substitute ).

I felt the reveal of the ejection seat and Tachibana's wish for Shikishima to live should have been foreshadowed, given how angry Tachibana was, as well as the survival of Noriko. I was looking forward to a kamikaze attack on Godzilla, damn it, as much as it wasn't a "happy ending", it made narrative sense at that point of the film.

The scenes that had characters referencing Shikishima's line "My war isn't over" irked me a little, like correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure there wasn't an initial scene where the characters involved were all there for it to make sense to them when it is referenced. It was a line that would only make sense for the audience. Like Tachibana's response should have been "Huh, my war isn't over either? What are you talking about?" and at the end when Noriko says "Is your war over yet?" Shikishima should have said "I never said that line to you on camera!" . Inb4: patronisations. Yes, yes, I know, but it's not how I would have done it, and it is so easily fixed.

The part of the film where Godzilla sinks and suddenly turns off/implodes (?), for lack of better description, got a laugh from the audience. Not a bad thing, but I thought I would mention it .

3.6/5 stars.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Kwaidan (1964)

All 4 stories being framed as a retelling of tales that are also period pieces makes the older, almost stage play-like presentation of a lot of the sets really interesting even in a modern rewatching context. Whereas a film that's being presented as a "real" event rather than a retelling might feel aged, the older techniques being used for anachronistic stories actually makes this feel better in some ways. My only real criticism of the film's age is that some of the use of silence in the first story where there are occasional effects like breaking floorboards do show age in a way that's a bit jarring as they feel a bit too disconnected from what is being seen.

It's always interesting seeing older horror films, but especially how this has a really different tone. While they're focused around spirits, hauntings, and/or curses of some variety, they're all far closer to what you'd classically call "ghost stories" rather than horror. It's hard to find exactly the right word for it, but there's a different type of emotion at the core of all of them that's distinct from how I typically feel about horror films. While they're all someone having an unsettling, worrying, & unexpected interaction with the supernatural all 4 stories have a really different feel to them.

Spoiler: What I thought of each of the 4 parts, and how they work together as a cohesive overarching narrative

• Black Hair
This one is more of a moral parable about youthful ignorance & regret, but the presentation & escalation from the normal into the supernatural is the most sudden, so it works really well as an introduction. This one is interesting as well since it differentiates from how a lot of Western stories & mythology end up with understanding & love being the thing needed to break a curse and free both of them, as in this case the regret that lead to the love & understanding was essentially just a tool for laying her to rest from the suffering that she had endured, whereas the years of that anguish were then near-instantaneously exacted upon him afterwards despite that since there's no way for him to undo that damage he had caused. This is a major factor in what differentiates curses in Western mythology where breaking them frees both of the suffering, Japanese Tatarigami will oftentimes be resolved when the suffering is instead merely experienced equally upon the one who caused it just as much as upon the one who endured it (like how both Iron Town & the Forest Gods are destroyed in the end of Princess Mononoke).

This is one of the things that I most appreciate about the portrayal of this Japanese ghost story in juxtaposition to Brothers Grimm or other Western fairy tales that have consequences for both parties, or even ones with superficially similar themes like The Ring or Ju-on is that what's happening isn't born out of a grudge or from unresolved vengeance spilling out onto others – like what would have happened had the samurai never returned home. This one contains the conclusion of breaking that curse, and the "happy ending" is the moment of resolution even knowing that the consequences were not yet endured. It's why it's difficult to classify the emotion of this type of horror in the same way as it's more introspective than terrifying.

• Snow Woman
While Black Hair is about not recognizing love, Snow Woman is instead the opposite. It's about how compassion & love are capable of saving someone, but how commitments you make have to be honoured. When the snow woman appears and drains the life from his dying companion, she hesitates and doesn't want to kill him, so in exchange for his life she has him the promise to maintaining secrecy over what happened and never telling another person about what had happened and should he ever break that, she will kill him. Years later when he's happily married with 3 children and suddenly remembers it like it was a dream and mentions it to his wife, that pact is instantly broken as his life was traded away when the promise was broken revealing she was his wife... but she cannot bring herself to kill him and leave their children alone. So she swears that she'll return should they ever have a single complaint about him as a caring father as he was always kind to them despite that broken promise. After she vanishes, he leaves the new shoes he'd just made for her and final shot is them slowly being covered with snow before vanishing.

Unlike Black Hair, this one is about how even love alone has limitations. Both of them still obviously care about one another, but the violation of that promise represents an irreconcilable rift between them that fundamentally cannot be mended. His promise for keeping silence was the thing that was protecting her from needing to keep her promise of killing him, which she never wanted to do. It's difficult to portray protecting something that is a threat to you in a way that doesn't involve entangling it with an underling element of manipulative abuse, but this hits at the core of how (especially in Eastern societies that require degrees of social conformance) honoring one's word protects the people whose responsibility it is having to bestow punishments upon someone that they don't want to see suffer.

I feel like this one is almost a perfect inversion of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" because that's one where constantly speaking up about something leads to consequences for the person abusing the type of contractual promise made in speech that's attached to a life-or-death consequence. In "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" it's not often focused on how the boy is likely not the only victim of an ignored alarm, and the harm he caused likely doesn't just get neatly resolved with the deserved comeuppance of his death, but rather the attack is merely an escalation of the stress and damage that comes from breaking the promise associated with that type of speech. Along with Black Hair giving context for that type of promise being born out of love for another person, I think that they overall build a far more nuanced and interesting moral framework for these sorts of parable stories.

• Hoichi the Earless
This one is the closest to a classic horror story, especially because the Heike are the quintessential dangerous & mournful Japanese undead. While this was before the mid-80s when those themes got even more deeply embedded into popular culture, I can't help but feel like Kwaidan's adaptation of this was likely an influence on how those themes rose to prominence. FFVII's Gi Tribe are almost certainly built upon these underlying themes, especially with the disembodied spirits of the dead warriors taking the form of floating balls of fire, as well as the fact that the spectres of the dead warriors can also take physical form and have the ability to physically harm the living.

This one is by far the closest to a traditional "horror" as the victim is an innocent and all of the harm that befalls him is something that he's not to blame for. His exceptional skills are what draw the ghosts to bring him in and he has no idea of the risks, and he remains trapped by that risk BECAUSE he keeps his word and doesn't tell anyone – which builds upon Snow Woman where that value was established. When the others follow him and discover what's happening, it's their duty to help free him from a danger that he's unable to recognize, and when they tell him that he has to maintain complete silence and not cry out for assistance – he does exactly as he must. Even while the priests go through the complicated process of freeing him from their grasp, the damage Hoichi suffers of having his ears torn off by the ghost whose duty it is to bring him back as proof that he wasn't neglectful of his own responsibilities, is because of an oversight in the priests' safeguards.

Nevertheless, Hoichi doesn't falter in this, because this underscores the paramount importance in others needing to safeguard those who cannot do so for them themselves. This is what allows Hoichi to continue to utilize his exceptional skill to play for the royal regime who heard his story, even though it is EXACTLY the same as the scenario he was tricked into with the ghosts. One person alone cannot possibly stand up against a powerful & exploitive organization – but especially when they treat them as an honored guest while slowly taking an exacting toll that is unjust for the services rendered. This is why in the end, the entire temple thrives from Hoichi's presence.

Of all of the stories, I think that this one is the most culturally poignant as it's where so much of modern Japanese cultural struggles exist because of the mechanics of Western corporate capitalism reinforcing top-down obligation to one's employer whilst simultaneously amplifying a focus on individualist survival through isolation. If you have countless individuals who are like Hoichi, there's no one around who's able to keep their best interests in mind and join forces against a more powerful force in order to save them. Beyond this being the most overtly violent & harmful to an innocent, as well as the visuals of Hoichi covered in the Heart Sutra, I think that this is likely a reason that this story still stands out amongst the four.

• In A Cup of Tea
This one does a really excellent job of pulling in the overt narrative structure of showing this as an author overtly covering an old story that doesn't have an ending. It makes the mechanics of the spirits as semi-tangible and also ethereal rather unsettling, with the only downside being that we don't have any real context for who the samurai is as a main character, so it's difficult to know how to feel about him and his position in the plight unlike the other tales and it doesn't lend itself to connecting to the story as easily (which is part of the point, but it still can't help but feel lacking for a bit in juxtaposition to the prior tales nonetheless). So, when he drinks the cup of tea with the phantom samurai reflected in it and then the two end up in a conflict with one another, we don't get a full understanding of the underlying message or the context of which side we're meant to understand or who is in the wrong – especially based upon the importance of everything that was emphasized by the previous stories.

It's a conflict of being in a more realistic position of needing to figure out what's happening and not having all of the answers – even knowing you're going to be expected to draw your own conclusion from the outset. As a follow-up to Hoichi, this works as a narrative lesson because it's difficult to know which side is in the right or who needs to be protected when you're only able to discern limited information about what's happening. However, it's a demonstration of how that responsibility is complicated and filling in the gaps with your own assumptions is a natural inclination that you'll be drawn to for yourself that isn't in service of those who the story is actually about or what happened in it.

While the author who's re-publishing these older works mentions that he is able to come up with his own ideas and has a number of ideas for how to make a more satisfying ending, doing this based upon solely his own limited perspective will create a version of the narrative that may be most interesting – but one that is not an accurate representation of what's recorded in the original document about what took place. With no way of knowing if it's being disrespectful of someone who is the victim rather than the abuser, manufacturing an ending reshapes that reality on a whim for others who would read that retelling.

The story's abrupt conclusion, and then the cut into where the publisher and his wife find the author working on rewriting the tales that have been covered is missing, and then discover he's trapped in a reflection in the same way as the story. While at the start the author wonders why the story is left incomplete and speculates if it was boredom in writing, other responsibilities pulling them away, or even death that kept the various incomplete stories without endings – but is forced to leave the narrative without an ending as it was written really speaks to the core nature of Japanese curses & spirits all being about the collective contractual obligation of honor & respect towards those who can't protect themselves.

While in Hoichi this applied to the vulnerable living, In A Cup of Tea applies this to the dead, and thus ties the theme overtly into what causes the manifestations of these curses directly back to the same type of disrespectful abandonment that Black Hair started with. This is also why I appreciated Kwaidan more after having seen The Ring & Ju-on before as those are an example of what a curse is like when it's spread to others out of a focus on self interest, rather than the greater harm that could be caused by one's actions. The author's punishment reflects how anyone manufacturing their own version of events is perpetuating a form of spreading the very curse the tale was attempting to warn against, rather than providing a meaningful moral lesson on the story the way that the previous 3 tales have done, and so especially with the publisher pushing him to release his book coming to see if it's ready yet, and this being portrayed as essentially the outline for the film itself, the emphasis on the importance of storytelling with the emphasis of fear about what the lack of that honesty & integrity can become feels like the perfect way to end the film as well as tell genuinely retell a story that doesn't have an ending without it feeling unsatisfying (even if it's harder to get into at first).

Overall:

All-in-all, this culmination of the individual stories building upon one another both thematically and morally makes Kwaidan an exceptionally interesting film, and hopefully all that tl;dr covered why it's hard for me to think about it as a horror movie the way I do other films. Even films that have that sort of fairytale like storytelling quality to them where there's an underlying moral parable layered into the more beautifully tragic depiction of horror like in Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth or Crimson Peak still FEEL really different to this film.




X

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Dune: Part II

Saw this over the weekend and it's REALLY good. Haven't done a proper back-to-back viewing of Part One & Two, which I think would be amazing to have all together, but I'll likely end up waiting until they're released digitally or on BluRay before doing that as then I'll be able to get into both of them with English subtitles rather than just the first half.



X

 

[Erotic Materia]

Dune: Part II

Saw this over the weekend and it's REALLY good. Haven't done a proper back-to-back viewing of Part One & Two, which I think would be amazing to have all together, but I'll likely end up waiting until they're released digitally or on BluRay before doing that as then I'll be able to get into both of them with English subtitles rather than just the first half.



X

I also saw this in theaters, one of the fancier types...not IMAX though. The sound was absolutely incredible. But yeah, it is REALLY good. They strike the perfect balance for dramatic pauses without letting things drag on too long. And I'm no cinema nerd, but this is the first time where the thought "Jesus, the cinematography in this movie is INSANE" went through my head. The shot composition, the subtle (or sometimes blatant) desaturation, the sense of scale, all of it worked in perfect tandem with the story as it unfolded.

Side note: I just did a small dive on what the difference is between IMAX and others, etc. Apparently, the overwhelming consensus is that IMAX on 70mm film projection is the ultimate way to watch a film. But there are only 30 such theaters in the entire world. And the film rolls weigh 600 POUNDS. Woof.

 

[Rydeen]

 

[Dog]

The Kitchen (2023)

I feel for most people this is either going to be a film you really like or just don’t gel with at all, with little in between.
For me, I liked it a lot, I’m very much into films that are predominantly character studies. The sci-fi elements are fairly light compared to other stories of this nature but work so well within this future idea of London, England and fit excellently into a story centering on classism and resisting gentrification

 

[Leafonthebreeze]

Dune: Part II

Saw this over the weekend and it's REALLY good. Haven't done a proper back-to-back viewing of Part One & Two, which I think would be amazing to have all together, but I'll likely end up waiting until they're released digitally or on BluRay before doing that as then I'll be able to get into both of them with English subtitles rather than just the first half.



X

It wasn't quite back to back, but I rewatched part 1 at home the night before going to see part 2 at the IMAX (@Erotic Materia I didn't know there were only 30 in the world! Two of them are in London and my friend has one local to him in a random bit of Kent so I just figured they were everywhere lol).

I actually found part 1 quite boring on a rewatch, this was my first time watching since seeing it in the cinema and I was surprised at how little I enjoyed it this time round. I really enjoyed part 2, although how much of that was the IMAX experience I don't know yet. I like that more happened and that Chani had something to do. Also I didn't think they could top Sting's Feyd Rautha but turns out Austin Butler is hot when completely hairless. I've not been into him as an actor before, but he managed to make Feyd attractive despite not being Sting, which is impressive.

1984 one will still be my beloved though. Sting in a metal speedo lives close to my heart at all times.

 

[Erotic Materia]

turns out Austin Butler is hot when completely hairless

Don't mind me, ladies....just taking a Nair bath over here

 

[Ghost X]

Madame Web

I figured I may as well see it, given I was seeing it for free, and controversial opinion: I didn't find it that bad. The writing was a bit amateurish, and I think I missed a few minutes at the beginning as I was tired and fell to sleep, but it was definitely an average film rather than a bad film. It reminded me of like a cheesy 1980s vampire film aimed at teenagers (though taking itself seriously), just with a lot more money behind it in production, and in place of vampires, it's like the Spider-man universe. It does the job. It wasn't boring, and kept me engaged (except when I fell to sleep, but that was more of a me thing), etc. I would say the main crime is the production cost.

2.5/5 stars.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Godzilla X Kong

TBH, it felt more like it should have been called "Kong X Godzilla" as Godzilla was essentially just a convenient plot device, and the story was almost entirely centered full-time on Kong. The writing was kind of just a mess all over and the pacing is SUPER weird.

The main detail that I find frustrating is that there's this whole system of global awareness about giant monsters with Monarch, but there's NEVER any evacuation effort shown when they're showing up and decimating a major city full of people. Not only do the Japanese films ALWAYS focus heavily on the evacuation efforts when Godzilla is even loosely approaching a certain region, but Godzilla 2014 focused EXTREMELY closely on the idea of monsters as moving natural disasters in scope where even just the water displacement from Godzilla's approach is devastating. This being built off of an interconnected continuity to the first Legendary film feels just... inhumanely shallow for what would have been hundreds of thousands if not MILLIONS of casualties.

If you want to have your set pieces with Kaiju wrecking big cities – commit to what that means and set it up properly in your writing.


X

 

[Gym Leader Devil]

Godzilla X Kong

TBH, it felt more like it should have been called "Kong X Godzilla" as Godzilla was essentially just a convenient plot device, and the story was almost entirely centered full-time on Kong.

I was worried after GvsK they'd go that route. I've said before I get it, Kong is a primate, easier for casual viewers to empathize with, it makes sense... But I don't care, I want big G front and center. And ffs, Legendary Goji is more than emotive enough to be a real character, not a plot device. It frustrates me.