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

La Révolution française (1989)

Here's five hours of historical drama goodness. I've read a lot lately about the French Revolution. Especially listened to the excellent podcast Grey History. So I wondered if there was any good movie made on it. While searching I found this gem. This was commissioned by various European governments (no, not only France) for the bicentennial of the French revolution in 1989.

No, it's not the best movie ever made. Because the plot is random and takes a lot of left turns. But that is what happened in the French revolution. The film also doesn't take sides. It just shows the history straight up. I like that they start off making Robespierre a likable person. And not at all an utter sociopath, which he was.

What makes this an utter gem is the respect for historical accuracy and getting all the details right. I love when historical dramas try this hard to get the facts right. This film goes out of their way to get details right when they don't even matter for the movie. Stuff like that on the first day of the revolution the revolutionaries wore green cockades to symbolize they were revolutionaries. But then switched to the red, white and blue the next day. Skipping this detail would have made the story easier to follow. But they kept it in due to historical accuracy. Because that's what happened. I like details like that.

Fun fact is that they used (when possible) all the actual locations and historical objects. Since it had strong government support this film got everything they wanted. This film had an unnecessarily high budget. But I'm not complaining.

I also liked that they didn't compromise on the length. This film got whatever length it needed to tell the whole story. It's over five hours of top notch movie.

Sam Neil does a great LaFayette. Trivia is that he speaks no French. He was dubbed afterwards. Which just makes it hilarious that they wanted him in it. LaFayette was such a wonderful character in the revolution. One of the instigators and heroes of the early revolution, but who quickly realizes that the revolution is spinning out of control and then just tries to hang on for dear life. He was a man adored and admired by a people he just wanted to escape from. Which he eventually did. Sam Neil plays it brilliantly.

But judged on aesthetics this is not a masterpiece. It's pretty forgettable. A lot of overacting. So much joy they can barely contain themselves, all the time. A lot of the dialogue is in it just because it was historically accurate that it was said, but which adds nothing to the story as such. As a viewer we know that the most important things said in the revolution was said in the shadows between people conspiring, and off any record. By the time the grand speech is said in front of people is made the people in the plot are in already. But this film makes it seem like all those speeches where the only time anybody discussed anything in the National Assembly. Sure, the length of the movie is a constraint and I'm sure there's history buffs who want to hear all the famous speeches. But the fact that it's so much of it, makes it a bit silly IMHO.


What's more is that it's available and free to watch on Youtube. Enjoy

Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=The+French+Revolution+Part+1

Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgtK2BnMmUM

http://greyhistory.com/

This podcast goes into absurd detail on the French Revolution. It aims to give a nuanced picture about all the people and events. It's looooooooooooong. I will only recommend it if you have a lot of time on your hands and if you think this kind of historical nerdiness is fun. It will NOT give you a good overview of the events. I'd say you have to know quite a lot going in, or this will just be a wall of facts.
 
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Premonition starring Sandra Bullock. One of the worst movies I've ever seen, no exaggeration. And I've seen Battlefield Earth!

I don't even know where to start with this one, the two dimensional, boring characters, the plot that doesn't make sense and not in a way that haunts you or makes you question the nature of life or reality, the utter predictability of scenes independent of the overall nonsensical story, the flat chemistry of the actors, the trite Lifetime ending... I'm angry that I watched this shit all the way through thinking some twist or revelation at the end might redeem this piece of shit.

Edit: Great, now Amazon Prime thinks I want more of this type of crap.
 
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

5/5, and y'all should know I don't give out that fifth star to just any movie.

This may be the best musician-based film I've ever seen, precisely because it avoids most tropes of the muscial biopic and instead crafts a poetic imaginary backdrop to the production of a particular record. Most of the characters aside from Ma are invented, but incredibly reflective of the time and place being portrayed. We're still struggling with most of the same issues today, but the film doesn't beat you over the head with anachronistic social commentary or turn the protagonists into whitewashed idols. Their humanity is respected, and even though their racialized experiences of life very much shape the situation they are in, each character is more so an archetype of the kinds of humans who exist in all socities, rather than digestible racial stereotypes. Viola Davis is utterly stunning as Ma Rainey; if I didn't know it was her, the voodoo magic of makeup, method acting, and voice coaching that turned her into the titular character would have fooled me. Chadwick Boseman gives his last acting performance in this movie, and the (now known) fact that he knew he was slowly dying of colon cancer while this was filming makes his outraged soliloquys on death throughout this film very hard to watch. He's up for an academy award, and I hope he gets it, little comfort though such an award might be to the dead. We lost him far, far too soon. He deserved to escape the dubious, limiting frame of the summer blockbusters and make a dozen more films like this one. The costumes in this movie are also amazing, pitch perfect. If you watch this on Netflix or DVD, take the time to watch the attached documentary on how they accomplished all the time-traveling aspects of this movie, it should be a must-watch for future aspiring film-makers.

I've heard this film disparagingly described as "Oscar Bait", but I do not agree. True Oscar Bait comes and goes without ever being seen by most moviegoers, and leaving little impact on the world after the year when they are made. But Ma Rainey draws it's identity and strength from much more than just sentimentality. It is a story about humanity, persistence, injustice, and untimely death. It's representation of a time period and place are pitch-perfect. I suspect that those who love movies will be talking about this one for a long time to come.



Oh, I also watched Mank. 3/5 Now that shit is some actual Oscar Bait. What's with all the highly fictionalized accounts of Golden Age directors, lately? It's becoming a small genre of its own lately, and they've all been disappointing so far.
 
Promising Young Woman 2.5/5

I don't care what everyone else says, this is a pretty bad movie. But it is a genre that giving a bad review to will bring about the ire of more compliant compatriots, so I get it. It runs through the entire laundry list of the Me Too movement and presents them as such: A laundry list. One quirky little attribute

of in her shoes

I did not catch until halfway through, which was kind of neat but still clunky in it's presentation.
 
Godzilla vs Kong 9/10

Yea, I’m a big Godzilla fan. Actually met the star of the original movie at a convention. There were two separate human plots that were bare bones and stupid at times, but they did their job in keeping the story moving and getting us to what we really want to see: giant monsters causing mass destruction. And those fight scenes delivered! Very brutal fight with a few trillion in property damage. No after-credit scene this time. Oh and yes, there is a definite winner.
 
Midsommar 7/10 Didn't realize this was horror movie. Think it's a few years old. In the vane of Wicker Man, but done differently enough to be watched. Not talking about Nick Cage Wicker man, but the original. Which I give a 9/10.
 
Old tv movie "In Broad Daylight" (1991) about the Ken Rex McElroy story. 7/10

If they had not acted I think that he would have killed 5-10 people that week.
 
DrZoidberg said:
ZiprHead said:
Watching 2001: A Space Odyssey. Probably been 15 years since last seen on Turner Classics. I liked how they didn't cut anything, even the intermission.

Surprising how well it's held up even though it's more than fifty years old.
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I recommend trying to watch it on a big screen. It's a completely different experience. Especially the end.

Fun fact, the end is intended to be watched on LSD. In a movie theatre.

Its a mind blowing experience. With or without acid
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I just ran across this.

Ray Manzarek, who has a degree in Cinematography, and the Doors went to the opening of 2001 in L.A. Here he describes the experience.

“It was the opening night of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and somebody got the Doors about a half-dozen tickets. There was a 7 o’clock showing and we had rehearsal in the afternoon. So John, Robby, Jim, Dorothy and I forget who else, we hop in the car and head over to the theater in Hollywood, which had a Cinerama screen.

We smoked a joint, and when we walk in to the theater, the place is packed. The only seats left are in the front row. That’s the last place you want to be to watch a movie — everything’s out of proportion! Ideally, you want to be sitting right in the middle. So we’re sitting in the front row going, ‘ah shit. … what the hell, we’re stoned, we’ll just sit down and watch the movie.’

Turned out to be the best seats in the house. Sitting in front of that screen with nothing in front of you but outer space — then those apes and the sunrise, however Kubrick did that was absolutely overwhelming. We sat there with our mouths agape. It was so brilliant — that opening with that music. Morrison stood up after the first two minutes, when it went black after that sequence right before the apes, and said, ‘Well, that’s the best movie I’ve ever seen; we can go now.’

‘Jim, sit down, you comedian.'”
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I watched Ewoks: Caravan of Courage yesterday, finally finishing off a complete rewatch of all the Star Wars franchise movies to date that we've been plugging away at since the winter holidays. A brief ranking and review of all fifteen films follows:

1. Star Wars: A New Hope (1977)
5/5 Non-moons
Responsible for the rest; changed film-making forever​

2. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
5/5 Nerf-herders
Best pathos of the original series​

3. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
5/5 Ancient Jedi Texts
A quasi-Taoist masterpiece.​

4. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
5/5 Very Predictable Character Deaths
Contains possibly some of the best acting in the series? Sad but very watchable​

5. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
4/5 Bread Rations
More good acting, and enjoyable action despite the predictable plot​

6. Revenge of the Sith (2005)
4/5 Weird Opera Scenes
My favorite of the prequels, despite many flaws; very meme-able and included some worldbuilding that should have been there throughout​

7. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999)
3/5 Droid Cameos
Watchable for the most part, but very derivative of both existing canon and, oddly enough, other classic films. Ben Hur? Really?​

8. Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983)
3/5 Jedis Like His Father Before Him
I feel like someone will be mad at me for placing this one so low, but the thing is, as a film it is a bit of a mess; essentially three TV episodes/plots awkwardly spliced into one movie, one of which is REALLY good but the others, well…​

9. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
2/5 Meaningful Winks to the Camera
The First to cross to the wrong side of the quality line. Example to all film-makers of how not to do a prequel.​

10. The Clone Wars (2008)
2/5 Popular Character Debuts
Actually mostly enjoyable to watch from scene to scene, but goes on for a very long time without really saying much.​

11. Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (2002)
2/5 Bad Feelings About This
Barely Watchable; single-handedly saved from one star status by the cool noir drama Ewan Gregor seems to have starred in during filming and they just decided to coat it in CGI and throw it in to offset the dreadful teen romance that constituted the main plot. Also, one of John William's best scores.​

12. Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)
2/5 Untranslated Wookie Grunts
Bea Arthur and Boba Fett: Great! The rest: oh dear. HOW much cocaine was imbibed while conceiving of this ill-considered variety show?​

13. Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (1984)
2/5 Da Vinci-esque Flying Machines
I actually sort of like the quasi-ethnographic approach to the Ewoks themselves. Alas, the rest is a bit painful to watch.​

14. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
1/5 Under-Utilized Roses and Finns
This one genuinely upset me at the movie theater, and I clearly haven’t forgiven it yet.​

15. Ewoks: The Battle For Endor (1985)
1/5 Space Witches
Is this one even a Star Wars movie? Most of it seems like a discarded Conan the Barbarian script.​

After the whole ordeal, I still kinda love the ever-living starlights out of this series as a whole. Even bad Star Wars movies don't annoy me half as much as some of the other nonsense they put in theaters these days.
 
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle - This film was generally panned, though Roger Ebert gave it 3 of 4 stars. Having been watching the original show with my daughter and having just watched this movie with my daughter, the movie was incredibly faithful to the original material, and was about as perfect a transition to a motion picture it could have possibly have been. Rocky and Bullwinkle wasn't the funniest show ever. It was good and funny, but it wasn't LOL 24/7. I suppose the question could be, at this point, can a serial concept work as a movie. (Let's ask Batman!)

The casting for the movie was very good and despite this movie bombing (grossing $35 million, half the cost to produce it), I thought it hit the target. I saw on Wiki that Rene Russo was nominated for a worst supporting actress Raspberry for her role, I have absolutely no idea why. She also was nominated for a Saturn for best supporting actress.

It isn't winning an Oscar, but it was never supposed to. The movie remembered what it was originally, never took itself too seriously, didn't overstay itself, and maintained a coherence for the plot and maintained with effective visual humor, including the real life transition of cartoon foolery (bombs, safes, etc...). The people that didn't like it, I don't know what they were expecting.

3 of 4
 
Nobody - 3/10
i've been calling this movie "bob odenwick" to amuse myself, and that's exactly what it is.
screenplay by half of the duo that created john wick, exact same premise with a few minor tweaks, but every tweak makes it substantially worse.
i was shocked at how dumb this movie was - not that john wick was brilliantly written, but it was tonally consistent and works within the context of its world, as preposterous as that world was.
this movie has a problem of swinging wildly between 'john wick' style gritty realism and a sam raimi level of campy schlock, and the end product just didn't work.

Predator - 9/10
the original 1987 film, wife had never seen it.
IMO this movie has a grand total of 4 flaws in it and they are all single instances that are simply lacking the transcendent perfection of the rest of the movie (two stupid and pointless one-liners, one instance of 'dialogue that only exists for stupid people in the audience', and one case of 'dialogue because it's been too long since there was any dialogue').
other than those four minor flaws it's pretty much a perfect movie in the action/thriller/sci-fi genre.
 
The Gentlemen, 7/10; A decent crime/action drama starring Mathew McConaughey, Hugh Grant, Charlie Hunnam and a host of familiar faces. When I started watching the movie I didn't know who the director was but after about five minutes in I could guess, Guy Ritchie so it has a familiar feel to his earlier work, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels etc. It's the story if an American marijuana producer with operations scattered around the UK. The plot and action twists and turns at a good pace.
 
The Old Guard 5/10

Too boring to describe more.
 
OLDMAN said:
Midsommar 7/10 Didn't realize this was horror movie. Think it's a few years old. In the vane of Wicker Man, but done differently enough to be watched. Not talking about Nick Cage Wicker man, but the original. Which I give a 9/10.
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I need to watch this. I'm a big fan of cultural appropriation. The dumber the better.

Fun fact, Swedish Midsummer is a pagan festival. It's still pretty much as it was back during the Viking age. The festival has survived, pretty much intact. What is lost in history is what it all means. We do a bunch of rituals each midsummer. But nobody knows why we do it or what it is supposed to symbolize. When I grew up adults did try to explain it to me. But I later did my research and looked it up. The pagan religious significance is lost in history. Nobody knows wtf it is about.
 
Finally watched The Irishman, all 209 minutes of it, plus all the special features. I can't tell yet if it will be one of the Scorsese miracle films that I return to again and again. The de-ageing tech is hard to ignore; at least it was for me. Sometimes the process made DeNiro look like a Japanese actor playing DeNiro. Also, it's not possible for guys in their mid- to late- 70s (DeNiro/Pacino) to walk with the same buoyancy they had back in the 80s. Torsos have gotten stocky, and necks have gotten stiff; the head doesn't turn as it once did. Also, there are no bravura, iconic scenes which, by themselves, will have instantly identifiable tag names. This film has a slower build and a different purpose than Scorsese's earlier mob films.
Biggest surprise: somewhere in the third hour, Pesci and DeNiro are driving with their wives through Ohio, and Pesci tells him that they won't go straight to Detroit, instead they'll go up to Port Clinton, because he has business there. I wigged out!! Next scene, they're supposedly at little Island Airlines, which is still in business up here, and DeNiro boards a little plane to do a mob assignment.
 
The Hunt 2020
2/10
mostly killing... murder porn.
speaking of which the big knockers make an appearance after 30 minutes of people getting killed every ~2 minutes I guess
 
Stowaway
8/10

A decent space survival movie. The premise is that there are three astronauts going to Mars (not for the first time; it's implied there is already a colony there and this is becoming a routine), but it turns out there is a fourth person on board and they don't have enough oxygen for everyone.
 
Jayjay said:
Stowaway
8/10

A decent space survival movie. The premise is that there are three astronauts going to Mars (not for the first time; it's implied there is already a colony there and this is becoming a routine), but it turns out there is a fourth person on board and they don't have enough oxygen for everyone.
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Seems unlikely that Oxygen would be the constraint. Carbon Dioxide scrubbing would be a more plausible issue in such a scenario - they're going to die from high CO2 waaaaaay before low O2 becomes problematic.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNYBtjHAuSA[/youtube]

If you take regular air, and rebreathe it until it reaches a toxic level of CO2, the O2 content has dropped from ~20.8% to maybe ~19.65%, which is far more O2 than humans need at 1 atmosphere (indeed the normal variation in O2 percentage at sea level is more than the ~1.5% substitution level of O2 to CO2 at which CO2 becomes dangerous).

In a closed system like a submarine or spacecraft, the rate of removal of CO2 is of vastly greater importance than the availability of O2, when considering how many people can survive for a given amount of time.
 
bilby said:
Jayjay said:
Stowaway
8/10

A decent space survival movie. The premise is that there are three astronauts going to Mars (not for the first time; it's implied there is already a colony there and this is becoming a routine), but it turns out there is a fourth person on board and they don't have enough oxygen for everyone.
Click to expand...

Seems unlikely that Oxygen would be the constraint. Carbon Dioxide scrubbing would be a more plausible issue in such a scenario - they're going to die from high CO2 waaaaaay before low O2 becomes problematic.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNYBtjHAuSA[/youtube]

If you take regular air, and rebreathe it until it reaches a toxic level of CO2, the O2 content has dropped from ~20.8% to maybe ~19.65%, which is far more O2 than humans need at 1 atmosphere (indeed the normal variation in O2 percentage at sea level is more than the ~1.5% substitution level of O2 to CO2 at which CO2 becomes dangerous).

In a closed system like a submarine or spacecraft, the rate of removal of CO2 is of vastly greater importance than the availability of O2, when considering how many people can survive for a given amount of time.
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I didn’t get the impression that getting the physics correct was their highest priority.
 
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