Rate the last film with your terrible opinions

From Dusk Til Dawn

While I remembered the general content of this (though mainly the opening 10 minutes and Salma Hayek's dancing), I'd forgotten a whole bunch of the details.
(I'd somehow entirely forgotten the Family and that Harvey Keitel was in it and Sex Machine, though all the memories came back while watching it.)

I'd also forgotten how good Clooney is in it, and how long it actually takes to final go nuts. And how totally OTT silly it becomes once it does.

I still loved it, but I remember feeling at the time that I'd probably rather have just had a full Gecko Brothers movie, and I still kinda feel that way now.

8.5 Eyeballs in the corner pocket / 10



See, now you don't even need to bother with Dune 2!

(I kid! It is an enjoyable-enough experience, just not a particularly affecting one.)

Civil War this afternoon. Thought this was superb and not what I was expecting (to be honest, not sure what I was expecting). Very Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now infused, as is often the case with warzone roadtrip movies. There is, of course, the strong political angle of the film that feels incredibly relevant to today's world. In reality though, that is secondary to the character study of the journalists embarking on their journey through war-torn USA.

Dunst is great as the weary photo-journalist who is looking back on her life and sees how broken she has become. The real lead though is Cailee Spaeny's Jessie, who is just starting to embark on the same road that Dunst's Lee has travelled.

Incredibly powerful when it needs to be, with the final 15-20 minutes being an absolute ear-splitting cacophony of noise that demands hearing on a cinema sound system. Use of sound throughout is great actually, as well as regular use of silence to really juxtapose the sounds of war.

And the Jesse Plemons scene... Wow!

Only disappointing note is that his supposedly Garland's last film in the director's chair. For me, he saved his best to last.

I loved it on the cinema. The scene where Di Caprio acts with the little girl in the western he’s in is one of the greatest scenes ever

Never watched it at home so might do soon

Thought I'd put on The Taste of Things as a gentle Sunday evening film. I was watching masters at work as Eugénie (Juliette Binoche) prepares food alongside chef Dodin Bouffant, and protegé Pauline. Beautiful, joyful, and bittersweet: onions were being cut throughout.

"May I watch you eat?"/10

Dune part two 5/10 Nope, didn't get on with that at all. Not as clever and interesting as it thought it was. Underwhelmed.

The Little Mermaid (2023) ***
I'm probably a lot more forgiving of these Disney "live-action" remakes than some people, but after seeing a load of them now, they pretty much all have the same problems: however impressive they can be visually, and however good the real people they get to embody these characters often are, they just come across as overly long and less expressive versions of the amazing animated movies we know and love. Here, the underwater scenes look incredible but lack almost all the dynamism, colour, and verve of the original. On land, where we can see humans moving about and dancing properly, the film improves, and some of the new songs are pretty good. Overall, it's one of the better examples of this trend, but it's still a bit of a shrug. What they need to do, really, is either adapt films that weren't stone-cold much-watched classics (how about Atlantis, or Sword in the Stone, or the Black Cauldron?), or just do complete reinventions like Cruella.
(Disney+)

Aren’t they moving onto the cgi films like Moana for live action remakes next already?

Yeah, the term 'live action' is a bit weird when talking about the disney remakes. Jungle Book basically just had Mowgli, and Lion King didn't have anything alive in it iirc.

The thing is that a lot of the charm and 'art' comes from the animation. There have been dozens of live action versions of classic fairytales like Snow White or Little Mermaid, but there's a reason that the Disney Animated ones are the ones people remember.
Also why most live-action versions of Anime have turned out a bit rubbish.

TBH, I think they'd have more luck doing the classic 2d animations in 3d (Tangled, Frozen, Moana style).
But not as shot-for short remakes, as their own things.

Saves money on writers and the creative. I’m pretty sure I read that they hadn’t paid some of the writers of the originals for other remakes.

Edit: I did: www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/why-original-lion-king-writers-are-losing-years-remake-1174451/

The Lion King was a really strange remake. Obviously it isn’t live action, so I’d guess you’d call it photorealistic?

If they were brave they’d have remade it without dialogue and had the story told like a nature doc (sans Attenborough). But nope. They’re singing.

Another new Bluey just landed as the surprise final episode of season 3. Its very cute.

The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)

Hey, it's the last movie directed by John McTiernan! Famed director of Die Hards 1 and 3, Predator, Hunt for Red October, this, and absolutely nothing else. Really going out on a high and definitely not going to jail for lying to the FBI.

Anyway, this has a Pierce Brosnan and a Rene Russo, and it's great! Great action sequences and great performances, and great chemistry between the actually-age-appropriate-for-each-other leads.

Points taken off for a stupid plot contrivance later in the movie, where an important misunderstanding could have been very easily cleared up with three simple words, I guess that's just normal dumb romcom bullshit, but it felt out of place in a movie that's otherwise pretty smart.

Very highly recommend all the same

8.5/10

I did watch the original recently, and can confirm that it is the most boring movie in the world, and that the remake is superior in almost every way.

Better?

Aeon Flux (DVD) - 2/5

It's not great, largely because it was butchered by the studio into an incoherent bland mess. I suspect it was never destined for greatness, but it has just enough ludicrous nonsense and early naughties nostalgia to be enjoyable. Whichever way you slice it, the ideas here are completely bonkers in a nice Cronenbergy Cyberpunky way, but the plot so boringly patched together that the stakes are never truly understood.