What was the last movie you watched?

[NRRork]

Goodfellas

Well, I read a couple hours ago that Henry Hill died, and I hadn't watched that movie in quite some time, so it seemed like a good night to do it! SUCH a great movie-- it had been way too long since I last watched it. Whether it's better than The Godfather, I dunno. Those movies are alike in that they both involve organized crime and De Niro was in both of them. That's about it. They're good for such different reasons that it's almost wrong to compare them, but people always do.

[lassieface]

The Verdict

I had no idea that this was written by David Mamet until the opening credits. Not surprisingly, it's really good.

[Nunyerbiz]

Goodfellas

Well, I read a couple hours ago that Henry Hill died

As much as I love Goodfellas... I have seen it somewhat recently... So I think I will eulogize Hill by watching My Blue Heaven...

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/nzDy3byWrQY?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/nzDy3byWrQY?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US</a>

[mrbasehart]

I saw Rock of Ages last night.  I liked it, but I think I'll be in the minority.  The first hour is basically Glee, complete with a selection of rock covers and mash-ups, just without the irony that makes Glee (at least in the first season) great.  Tom Cruise - who's in it quite a lot for someone advertised as basically a cameo - makes for a pretty good spaced-out rock legend, and his voice isn't bad either.  He has a pretty raunchy duet with Malin Ackerman, and it's possibly the highlight of the film.  Julianne Hough is mega-hot, and Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin aren't bad in it either. 

[Tripe]

Those movies are alike in that they both involve organized crime and De Niro was in both of them. That's about it. They're good for such different reasons that it's almost wrong to compare them, but people always do.

And they are similar in historical setting, at least partially.

They offer up two different takes on organized crime , one from an aristocrat's perspective (The Godfather) and the other from that of the peons (Goodfellas) so I don't think there's absolutely zero room for interesting observations to be made when comparing them.

[Nunyerbiz]

Lifeforce

A movie about an alien space vampire who takes the form of a very beautiful and very naked human female... brought to you by the director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the writer of Total Recall and the producers that brought you the best of Chuck Norris action movies... That's the bizarre British sci-fi/horror flick from 1985 known as Lifeforce.

I had vague recollections as watching this as a boy, do a google image search for "mathilda may lifeforce", that's the kinda shit that sticks with a 12 year old boy... (full disclosure: results will be NSFW with safesearch disabled). When I stumbled on the full version of the movie on Youtube, well I had to watch. Things start off interesting enough, with the plot slowly being revealed and the whole thing taking on a creepy, low-rent 'Alien' vibe. The plot does become a bit muddled in the middle, with lots of generic British scientist types standing around delivering exposition while looking all dignified and British-y.... and by the final act... the whole plot is completely over the top and goofy... But it is a fun ride. There are clear exceptions, but a lot of the effects are pretty decent, especially for a glorified B-movie from almost 30 years ago... There is some marvelous overacting scenery chewing from the main protagonist...  Oh yea... and a line or two back I mentioned that most of the effects were decent... well... a pre-TNG Patrick Stewart gets to die via an effect that was so ludicrously bad that I just had to snag a screenie...

spoilered for skullfuckingly bad awesomeness

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[MontyServo]

I saw Rock of Ages last night.  I liked it, but I think I'll be in the minority.

Going to see it this weekend if possible.  Never saw the stage musical version but this looks like it will be fun, especially since I am a fan of that era of music.

[mrbasehart]

Friends with Kids - Jennifer Westfeldt is the woman who wrote, directed and starred in Kissing Jessica Stein a whole bunch of years ago, a comedy that had promise, but ultimately lacked any sort of courage.  For this film, she gathers a bunch of her friends together (a good cast: Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Adam Scott) and retreads When Harry Met Sally, though without the wit or likeable characters.

Red Lights - Cillian Murphy and Sigourney Weaver play paranormal debunkers who decide to take on the task of investigating Simon Silver, a mysterious psychic who has returned to the limelight 30 years after retiring.  It starts off rather well, as the pair make for an X-Files light team, but when De Niro appears it gets kinda boring.  It also lacks the courage of its convictions and ballses up the ending quite spectacularly.

[Starman!]

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. It's odd but funny.

[Compound]

Legion: The Final Exorcism

...it's a film with Roddy Piper and a demonic pig.

... yeah, it doesn't really matter what I say after that, does it?

[Starman!]

The Kid (the Chaplin film). Great movie all around.

[Mrs. Dick Courier]

Young Adult

Pretty good.  Enjoyed Charlize Teron as the former small town popular girl in the big world.  It was really hard to feel bad for her character though.

Underworld Awakening

Enjoyed it.  Great to see Kate back, its not Underworld without her.

[Relaxing Dragon]

Been on a bit of a Spielberg kick over the past few days (not really intentionally, it just worked out like that):

Munich. While I still have difficulty understanding the conflicts that rage in the Israel-and-beyond slice of the world (by which I mean I've actually taken a class on the Middle East and a lot of it is still confusing. I'm good up until the Ottomans are out, after that it's a very messy region. And that's before Israel is even founded. But, I digress), I will say I understood this one considerably better than the last time I saw it several years ago. A very fine picture from Mr. S, and one that's actually rather remarkable for him in that it's quite ambiguous on who the real "good" and "bad" guys are, or at least in what the events of the film even accomplish. Spielberg is usually the sort of guy who's pretty crystal clear on what's what in his films (not a bad thing. I'm just saying), so something that's more morally complex from him, and that's handled so well (save for the sex scene at the end, which is too jarring and on-the-nose to really work) is quite remarkable. While I wouldn't think too hard as to the historical accuracy of the movie (beyond the recreation of the actual events at the Olympic games), what does happen is quite a compelling story, even as it morphs from a revenge thriller into a tale of the "those who fight monsters" variety. Good movie overall, regardless of what your political stance on the whole matter is.

In less murky waters, I also watched Minority Report and Jurassic Park. They're two of my favorite movies by him (just behind Jaws, as a matter of fact), and two of my favorite movies period. Dunno what else there is to even say about them, frankly.

I also watched Moonrise Kingdom today. It's a film that's so Wes Anderson it's ridiculous. Which is good for me, since I'm a big fan of his work, but if you're not on board with his style already, this film isn't going to be changing your mind.

[Artie]

Lotto: A Modern Day Tale

When you see a poster for a movie that looks like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(Released in 2010.  I'm not kidding)

You know it's going to be interesting.  I was hoping for something in the way of "The Room" type of bad, instead it was much much worse.

From what I could gather Lotto is about a terrible man (he's into human trafficking, drugs, all the bad stuff) who gets amnesia and spends a wild weekend in a casino with a woman he meets in the hospital after he is run over during a robbery attempt (not related to how he got amnesia).  As this is happening some goons are trying to track him down and get money from him over some bad stocks he gave someone.

If that seems very vague it's because thanks to the terrible directing, production values, almost total lack of intelligible dialog, and horrible music both in content and use in the movie it's hard to tell just what in the hell is going on.  But we're only 2/3rd's of they way thru the movie at this point.

After our hero and his lady friend return from casino-land and take care of the bad stock business things take a turn from mundane to utter madness.  They go to the hospital where a character was briefly shown early in the movie is going into surgery (why is never explained).  In the following 10 minutes or so (hard to tell cause it felt like hours) nothing that appears on screen is connected in any way - shots from earlier in the film are re-shown, random conversations between people we've never seen before, scenes of the surgery, and random loud noises and flashes of light.   I swear I almost lost my grip on reality for a few seconds, and not in that fun way. 

And wonder of wonders it all turns out to be a dream, from a character at the beginning of the film we've seen for all of 20 seconds.  Then the main character wins the lotto and gets shot to death.  Why?  I have no idea, nor do I care.

So, yeah... I wouldn't recommend it.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Pxc-hJ5sB5A?" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/Pxc-hJ5sB5A?</a>

[Nunyerbiz]

Demoted

A direct-to-DVD comedy starring Michael Vartan, Sean Astin and David Cross. Vartan and Astin star as the leading salesmen for a fictional tire company. They are basically immature pricks, hard partying, irresponsible in their personal lives, all around assholes... They particularly enjoy making life hell for the office outcast/dork, played by Cross. When the head of sales department drops dead after a night out on the town with Astin/Vartan, guess who gets promoted to boss? Yep... the outcast Cross... who then demotes his two tormentors down to the secretarial department and makes their lives hell.. and comical revenge hijinks ensue.

This one is notable for me only because the primary filming location was directly across the street from the office building where I work. For a few weeks, we'd walk over to the 'set' when taking a smoke break, poke our heads over the berm separating the parking lot from the street, and watch the happenings. That was kind of interesting... and I did see a number of the outside scenes being shot.

That said, this all took place almost four years ago... and the movie is just now seeing a direct-to-dvd release... so that should give you a general idea as to the overall quality. Not a terrible movie, but not terribly funny either. There are a few laughs, even if I felt sorry for Cross in a few of the scenes, he does deliver some funny material as the villain. Overall, the script is about as straightforward and predictable as they come... and this one won't have much staying power after you're done watching it... Maybe worth the 90 minutes for fans of David Cross, but a generally vanilla and forgettable comedy.