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Which movie did you watch today and how would you rate it?

 
 
 
F1
Is Brad Pitt channeling Steve McQueen?
Generally good for the genre but not great.
I am not a big fan of auto racing, so I have no idea how accurate it is.
My older brother is a big fan, and I will ask him.
6.5/10
 
It's a Wonderful Life (most of) - So apparently there are a couple versions, a public domain version and the complete version (no, I'm not talking about the missing footage for the ending that SNL "found"). Rifftrax did the public domain version, so there is a tiny bit of the movie missing... like perhaps the most important part, just after the bridge scene and the guy running down the road happy as a clam. Regardless, the film was a bit silly and I think it is way too forced plot wise. And this is being polite for this not being somewhat of a Christmas Carol ripoff.

2 of 4 (Rifftrax was really good though)
 
ZiprHead said:
Not worth starting a whole new thread about it but...

www.mlive.com

Is ‘Die Hard’ a Christmas movie? This decorative Michigan yard makes a case.

After watching the Bruce Willis classic hundreds of times, Matthew Barnard created an elaborate holiday tribute featuring mannequins, a real firehose, and a giant poster ordered from China.
www.mlive.com www.mlive.com
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Of course it is a Christmas movie. It didn’t just happen on Christmas. The fact that it was Christmas was integral to the plot.
 
TV and credit cards said:
One Battle After Another 8/10
I almost turned it off as soon as it began. Settling in for two and a half hours of Sean Penn and Leonardo DiCaprio with a side of Benicio Del Toro, I was expecting some serious action and drama. What I got was what looked to me like political social media come to life in Southern California. I don't want to preface this movie too much but it is well worth watching.
One thing I will comment on is Sean Penn's portrayal of Colonel Lockjaw. I hate to say he overshadowed Leonardo DiCaprio but he did. Granted his is that kind of character but still, Sean Penn just nailed it.
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I just finished watching it. I have to agree with everything you said. And that Lockjaw character was "special".
 
Shadowy Man said:
ZiprHead said:
Not worth starting a whole new thread about it but...

www.mlive.com

Is ‘Die Hard’ a Christmas movie? This decorative Michigan yard makes a case.

After watching the Bruce Willis classic hundreds of times, Matthew Barnard created an elaborate holiday tribute featuring mannequins, a real firehose, and a giant poster ordered from China.
www.mlive.com www.mlive.com
Click to expand...
Of course it is a Christmas movie. It didn’t just happen on Christmas. The fact that it was Christmas was integral to the plot.
Click to expand...
Xmas party, xmas music, dead guy santa reference. That is the trifecta.
 
In the past few days I've watched THREE movies, all recommended recently in this thread. I'll mention them in ASCENDING order of how high I rate them. Each of the movies is somewhat "weird"; it's hard to define their genres. I've copied the alleged genre from the first sentence of Wikipedia's article. (I show the IMDB and RTomato ratings in parens.)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

One Battle after Another (2025), a political action-comedy thriller (7.8 95%)
Sean Penn and DiCaprio are among my favorite actors, but I was very disappointed. For me the film lacked interesting action or funny comedy, as well as "political." I'll rate it 6.5, perhaps still too high.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

American Beauty (1999), a psychological black comedy-drama (8.3 87%)
I'd never seen this famous movie. It strikes me as a pastiche of clichés run together. It's pretty good, but hardly deserves 8.3 I'll rate it 7.5.

Here's what its director has to say about it:
Sam Mendes said:
... about "the meaning of life" or "the hollow existence of the American suburbs" ... "a mystery story, a kaleidoscopic journey through American suburbia, a series of love stories; ... it was about imprisonment, ... loneliness, [and] beauty. It was funny; it was angry, sad." ...
"[American Beauty] cannot be adequately summarized as 'here is a satire on what's wrong with American life'; that plays down the celebration of beauty. It is more tempting to summarize it as 'a portrait of the beauty underlying American miseries and misdeeds', but that plays down the scenes of cruelty and horror ..."
Click to expand...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Boogie Nights (1997), a comedy-drama (7.9 91%)
Not my usual "genre" but its very strangeness and severity make it very special. (I'm surprised wiki calls it "comedy" instead of "black comedy.") I'll rate it 8.3.

The star-studded cast features some of my favorites before the movies that I know them for. Don Cheadle, for example, stars in Crash (2004), one of my very favorite films, though some people strongly despise it.
 
Swammerdami said:
One Battle after Another (2025), a political action-comedy thriller (7.8 95%)
Sean Penn and DiCaprio are among my favorite actors, but I was very disappointed. For me the film lacked interesting action or funny comedy, as well as "political." I'll rate it 6.5, perhaps still too high.
Click to expand...
Who said it was a comedy???
 
ZiprHead said:
Swammerdami said:
One Battle after Another (2025), a political action-comedy thriller (7.8 95%)
Sean Penn and DiCaprio are among my favorite actors, but I was very disappointed. For me the film lacked interesting action or funny comedy, as well as "political." I'll rate it 6.5, perhaps still too high.
Click to expand...
Who said it was a comedy???
Click to expand...

I dunno. I just copied the description from Wikipedia, as I mentioned in the post you excerpt:
Swammerdami said:
... Each of the movies is somewhat "weird"; it's hard to define their genres.
I've copied the alleged genre from the first sentence of Wikipedia's article.
Click to expand...

The link above is to yesterday's Wikipedia. GeniusTaker then modified the sentence to its present condition, showing "American black comedy action thriller film."

The Wiki article has been modified 500 times just since 8 Nov 2025. 500 revisions ago the description was "a 2025 American action thriller." (This is the same description as 1000 revisions ago on 4 Oct 2025.) I don't know if Wikipedia's facilities offer a way to pinpoint the change to "political action-comedy thriller" without doing a binary search over the 500 most recent versions.
 
Swammerdami said:
ZiprHead said:
Swammerdami said:
One Battle after Another (2025), a political action-comedy thriller (7.8 95%)
Sean Penn and DiCaprio are among my favorite actors, but I was very disappointed. For me the film lacked interesting action or funny comedy, as well as "political." I'll rate it 6.5, perhaps still too high.
Click to expand...
Who said it was a comedy???
Click to expand...

I dunno. I just copied the description from Wikipedia, as I mentioned in the post you excerpt:
Swammerdami said:
... Each of the movies is somewhat "weird"; it's hard to define their genres.
I've copied the alleged genre from the first sentence of Wikipedia's article.
Click to expand...

The link above is to yesterday's Wikipedia. GeniusTaker then modified the sentence to its present condition, showing "American black comedy action thriller film."

The Wiki article has been modified 500 times just since 8 Nov 2025. 500 revisions ago the description was "a 2025 American action thriller." (This is the same description as 1000 revisions ago on 4 Oct 2025.) I don't know if Wikipedia's facilities offer a way to pinpoint the change to "political action-comedy thriller" without doing a binary search over the 500 most recent versions.
Click to expand...
Seemed to be a lot of things to me. My first reaction after I got past my initial discontentment of it not being a serious film was a bit heartfelt of what was going on. I didn't want to say, "It hit me emotionally on a couple different levels" because I would sound like a pretentious douche bag if I did. But it kinda did.
 
Bugonia

This film is brilliant. It's difficult to describe anything about it without giving at least something away, but here goes: a high powered CEO is kidnapped by two conspiracy theorists. Utter insanity and suspense ensues. It's well layered and twists abound. It stars Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons.

This is not the typical kidnapped person type of flick at all. When I see a movie featuring X person taken by bad guys and subsequently rescued by Y hero, I won't bother to give it a chance. I had no idea what the movie was about and I'm glad because I probably wouldn't have watched it.

See it.

9/10
 
Decline of Western Civilization I.

Hadn't seen this one in years and years. At the time it was heralded as something of a social examination masterpiece. It isn't. It just showcases mostly untalented losers and fans with disturbing violent tendencies. There's almost no attempt to find out where they came from and their responses to why they were into the scene was generally that everything else sucked. Beavis and Butthead wore Metallica and AC-DC shirts, but their intellects much more mirrored the punk scene than the metalhead. Fear was pretty good though.

5/10

Decline of Western Civilization II.

Showcases the L.A. metal and glam scene of the late 80s. Lots of misogyny but everyone, including the girls, were into it. Also, although it's acknowledged that many rock stars had drug and drinking problems, the outlier in the movie is WASP's Chris Holmes worrisome drinking in the pool while his mom watches. Overall though, the bands were there for the fame, the music, and the women. The fans were there for the music and the women. Generally, most were laid back young people having fun being young.

OTOH, the film failed to cover the darker and more controversial bands of the day like Slayer and Venom, which would've made for a much more interesting documentary.

6/10
 
Colonel Sanders said:
Bugonia

This film is brilliant. It's difficult to describe anything about it without giving at least something away, but here goes: a high powered CEO is kidnapped by two conspiracy theorists. Utter insanity and suspense ensues. It's well layered and twists abound. It stars Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons.

This is not the typical kidnapped person type of flick at all. When I see a movie featuring X person taken by bad guys and subsequently rescued by Y hero, I won't bother to give it a chance. I had no idea what the movie was about and I'm glad because I probably wouldn't have watched it.

See it.

9/10
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Emma Stone has won two Oscars and more; in 2017, she was the world's highest-paid actress. Yet I don't think I've ever seen her. Her name is familiar but I conflated her with Emma Watson of the Harry Potter films.

Bugonia is an extreme black-comedy; rated 7.5 (87% RT). It's far from any of my usual genres, but very well done and I'll give this extraordinary film 7.8. I watched it on the Colonel's recommendation and will follow his lead about Spoilering, except to note that stories today sometimes far exceed what Hollywood could venture in the 20th century.
 
Swammerdami said:
Emma Stone has won two Oscars and more; in 2017, she was the world's highest-paid actress. Yet I don't think I've ever seen her. Her name is familiar but I conflated her with Emma Watson of the Harry Potter films.
Click to expand...
I first saw her in "The Rocker". Then she was in both the "Zombieland" movies. She was great in "Poor Things" but that movie was great for so much more than just her performance.
 
Swammerdami said:
ZiprHead said:
Swammerdami said:
One Battle after Another (2025), a political action-comedy thriller (7.8 95%)
Sean Penn and DiCaprio are among my favorite actors, but I was very disappointed. For me the film lacked interesting action or funny comedy, as well as "political." I'll rate it 6.5, perhaps still too high.
Click to expand...
Who said it was a comedy???
Click to expand...

I dunno. I just copied the description from Wikipedia, as I mentioned in the post you excerpt:
Swammerdami said:
... Each of the movies is somewhat "weird"; it's hard to define their genres.
I've copied the alleged genre from the first sentence of Wikipedia's article.
Click to expand...

The link above is to yesterday's Wikipedia. GeniusTaker then modified the sentence to its present condition, showing "American black comedy action thriller film."

The Wiki article has been modified 500 times just since 8 Nov 2025. 500 revisions ago the description was "a 2025 American action thriller." (This is the same description as 1000 revisions ago on 4 Oct 2025.) I don't know if Wikipedia's facilities offer a way to pinpoint the change to "political action-comedy thriller" without doing a binary search over the 500 most recent versions.
Click to expand...
If you click on the link for the "action-comedy thriller film" in that first sentence, it then goes on to define it, with "moments of laughter" seemingly the only requirement for it to be an "action-comedy thriller" instead of just an action thriller. Other examples include Bullet Train, Lethal Weapon, Midnight Run, Knight and Day, Novocaine, and Grosse Point Blank. I have seen most of those and the only one I think is really meant as a comedy is Knight and Day; according to the Wikipedia article of that film, initial actors considered for the Tom Cruise role included Adam Sandler and Chris Tucker, further indicating the comedic nature of the film.
 
Shadowy Man said:
Swammerdami said:
The Wiki article has been modified 500 times just since 8 Nov 2025. 500 revisions ago the description was "a 2025 American action thriller." (This is the same description as 1000 revisions ago on 4 Oct 2025.)
Click to expand...
If you click on the link for the "action-comedy thriller film" in that first sentence, it then goes on to define it, with "moments of laughter" seemingly the only requirement for it to be an "action-comedy thriller" instead of just an action thriller. Other examples include Bullet Train, Lethal Weapon, Midnight Run, Knight and Day, Novocaine, and Grosse Point Blank....
Click to expand...

I thought the frequency with which the wiki article was edited is interesting. I've clicked links like you mentioned before; some of the lists are interminable. Hundreds of films are listed as melodramas (many of which do not mention "melodrama" in their own article). If one webpage calls it a melodrama, that's an adequate cite. OTOH. an obvious melodrama might be disallowed without such a cite. On the one hand, Wikipedia is a splendid resource; on the other it can be frustrating to read or to edit.

As for the disappointing One Battle after Another, I agree it failed as a comedy, but it also failed, for me, for action, thrills, drama and "political." In its genre description the only word I might endorse is "black."
 
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