RATE or REVIEW The Last Movie You Watched.

[BeefEaster]

I'm in agreement that Salem's Lot was pretty bad. A lot of stuff that happens later in the film had me rolling my eyes big time. The main dude fighting off 3 vampires at once while lying on his back made the movie feel like a joke. And how the main characters seemingly always decided to enact their plans at 7pm for some reason. And how the sun moved across the sky at random speeds depending on whether they needed to add tension to a scene or not.

 

[EVILFACE]

Just finished the new Salem's Lot. It wasn't good. Characters really had no rational thinking. It felt very . . . . sanitized and very rushed. You can't rush horror movies. They need time to build an atmosphere of dread. Has been a while since watching the original version. Maybe I should give the Rob Lowe one a spin first.

 

[Alatar]

Last night I watched the final movie in a stack of blu rays that I’d been meaning to watch, one per night, and it was Tenet. The 4K disk looks fantastic. Blu ray in general and 4K blu ray in particular looks amazing on an OLED TV. And for Tenet the cinematography, set and art design, and costumes for Tenet are all very good. It’s pretty to look at. And the score is pretty good.

As a cinematic experience Tenet failed hard for me, though, for a number of reasons. First, it simply required way too much conscious energy, focus, and hard work mentally to grasp all the details that were whizzing past my head rapid-fire like bullets. I got the basic gist of the story, but a story comes together in its details. Even though the movie does us the favor of explicitly spelling out what things mean, that exposition is delivered so fast that it’s next to impossible to digest. To figure out what all those things were I would have to have paused and rewatched the dialogue many times throughout the film to make sure I understood (or make a decent enough interpretation of) what they were talking about. That’s a huge ask from the getgo. And given my second reason I felt unmotivated to do that: the story and performances didn’t make me care what happened to anyone. I didn’t develop an emotional attachment and investment in anyone’s wellbeing or growth arc. None of the characters were particularly likable or relatable to me. And I guess then that the third fail for is that the acting just isn’t compelling enough either. The acting performances are solid enough at a fundamental level. But given the severe problems that I’ve mentioned there’s little that any of the actors can do to make me root for them or truly care about them. About halfway through this mess I kept watching only because I had made it to the last film in the pile of disks, and I was determined to complete the project of watching all those movies.

The sci-fi premise of the movie, the physics of reverse entropy, was a chaotic mess. And I do get that it’s supposed to be a mess. The movement is in the forward direction for non-time travelers, and for time travelers moving in reverse everything is flowing backward. And when time travel occurs these two directions of entropy are intersecting. But how satisfying is that aesthetically as a film experience? To me the answer is only a just a little. Plus the notion of opposite effects to the reverse entropy just felt silly, e.g., they have to breathe the oxygen from the time they travel from, fire causes ice crystals, and all that.

The one positive thing I can say is that the action in the film at least helped me complete the watch. The action scenes are pretty well choreographed.

So the watch project ended on a bit of a dud. But it was a fun experience overall to finally get around to watching the entire pile of movies. The weekend before I had managed to get in four other films prior to the last ten day watch period, so here’s the entire pile:

From this bunch the ones that gave me the most enjoyment are:

Ben-hur (1959)
One-eyed Jacks
Barry Lyndon
Cloud Atlas
The Woman King
Chronicles of Riddick
The Last Emperor
Malcolm X

 

[Remembermyname]

Last night I watched the final movie in a stack of blu rays that I’d been meaning to watch, one per night, and it was Tenet. The 4K disk looks fantastic. Blu ray in general and 4K blu ray in particular looks amazing on an OLED TV. And for Tenet the cinematography, set and art design, and costumes for Tenet are all very good. It’s pretty to look at. And the score is pretty good.

As a cinematic experience Tenet failed hard for me, though, for a number of reasons. First, it simply required way too much conscious energy, focus, and hard work mentally to grasp all the details that were whizzing past my head rapid-fire like bullets. I got the basic gist of the story, but a story comes together in its details. Even though the movie does us the favor of explicitly spelling out what things mean, that exposition is delivered so fast that it’s next to impossible to digest. To figure out what all those things were I would have to have paused and rewatched the dialogue many times throughout the film to make sure I understood (or make a decent enough interpretation of) what they were talking about. That’s a huge ask from the getgo. And given my second reason I felt unmotivated to do that: the story and performances didn’t make me care what happened to anyone. I didn’t develop an emotional attachment and investment in anyone’s wellbeing or growth arc. None of the characters were particularly likable or relatable to me. And I guess then that the third fail for is that the acting just isn’t compelling enough either. The acting performances are solid enough at a fundamental level. But given the severe problems that I’ve mentioned there’s little that any of the actors can do to make me root for them or truly care about them. About halfway through this mess I kept watching only because I had made it to the last film in the pile of disks, and I was determined to complete the project of watching all those movies.

The sci-fi premise of the movie, the physics of reverse entropy, was a chaotic mess. And I do get that it’s supposed to be a mess. The movement is in the forward direction for non-time travelers, and for time travelers moving in reverse everything is flowing backward. And when time travel occurs these two directions of entropy are intersecting. But how satisfying is that aesthetically as a film experience? To me the answer is only a just a little. Plus the notion of opposite effects to the reverse entropy just felt silly, e.g., they have to breathe the oxygen from the time they travel from, fire causes ice crystals, and all that.

The one positive thing I can say is that the action in the film at least helped me complete the watch. The action scenes are pretty well choreographed.

So the watch project ended on a bit of a dud. But it was a fun experience overall to finally get around to watching the entire pile of movies. The weekend before I had managed to get in four other films prior to the last ten day watch period, so here’s the entire pile:

View attachment 732481

From this bunch the ones that gave me the most enjoyment are:

Ben-hur (1959)
One-eyed Jacks
Barry Lyndon
Cloud Atlas
The Woman King
Chronicles of Riddick
The Last Emperor
Malcolm X

My friend, Your reviews are comprehensive and impressive.... I remember 42.

 

[BeefEaster]

Alien Romulus - 7.5/10

It was great to see the franchise go back to its horror roots, but it was a bit heavy handed at times with the callbacks to previous entries.

The cinematography and SFX were amazing. Such a beautiful movie.

 

[MxBxM]

The Thing 1982. 10/10

My 13yo boy was interested in watching old, good, classic movies.

He watched it and loved it. Of course, the special effects are dated, but the movie is not about that. It is the tension the movie gives when you first watch it all the way through.

The unkonwn on what is going on, what is that thing, how do you kill it, who could be a thing. All of that just keeps building up to a great resolution.

Now, we gotta go through the pre-sequel just so he can know how it all started.