Last Movie You Watched Part II, Electric Bugaloo

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Reminisce (2021)

It's a fun sci-fi noir mashup. Jackman trades in his spandex and claws for a rumpled suit. All he needed was a fedora and he'd be classic PI from the 30s.

Jackman is playing Nick, an ex-veteran in the future who runs a business allowing people to relive their memories. He uses the machine to track down his lost lover and gets embroiled in a conspiracy surrounding the death of a rich tycoon.

The film is set in a futuristic Miami where the tides are rising, leading to wars over land and tycoons profiting off deciding who gets to live. The worldbuilding is well done and unintrusive.

The film has great performances although I wished Thandie Newton's character had a bigger role in the last quarter. She plays Watts, Nick's old army buddy and partner in business. She steals the show in the first half. Jackman and Newton have an easy chemistry and sell Nick and Watts as old friends who are looking out for each other but also fed up with the other's bullshit. They aren't lovers but they aren't family either.

Rebecca Ferguson plays Mae, a singer Nick falls in love with. Her initial disappearance haunts Nick and his suspicions worsen when she is connected to drug dealers. Mae is two film noir Staples "the lost lenore" and "the femme fatale" mixed together.

The mystery itself is decent with its twists being rewarding but it can be long. This movie is close to two hours so map out your viewing accordingly.

[CliffHanger2]

The Tradegy of MacBeth. Wow even in his advanced years Denzel continues to take it to the next level. Just wish there was a color version.

[Mormel]

Going black-and-white can be pretty neat as a stylistic choice!

[CliffHanger2]

Going black-and-white can be pretty neat as a stylistic choice!

They pulled it off. The bw didn't take away from the movie imo. Just curious to see what the colors would look like. I still re-watch the sin city movies.

[JBatmanFan05]

Last Night in Soho....fantastic film, the dark side of the swinging British 60s.

[Jack Dracula]

The Book of Eli - Meh. A friend was telling me there was an interesting twist at the end. I suspect it may be that the producers and director just stole roughly two hours of my life.
Denzel Washington was the only interesting thing about the film. He can still command your attention despite phoning it in.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Shazam! (2019)- it's fun.

[Mormel]

Saw Precious from 2009 starring Gabourey Sidibe, about a downtrodden heavy-set teenage girl from a poor and abusive household in New York City, who gets the opportunity to enroll into an education program to help her out of her predicament, and Nebraska from 2013, starring Bruce Dern and Will Forte as an elderly father and his son, who take a road trip from Montana to Nebraska to collect a sweepstakes prize of 1 million dollars the father won. Both were pretty great and enjoyable, had a laugh and a cry in some places.

[Indian Ink]

Blade Runner 2049. Looked amazing. Pity I didn't see it on the big screen, but then today's large home TVs are a hell of a step up from those fuzzy box things from my childhood. Not a perfect film however. I found Ryan Gosling's character a little unengaging, which makes sense from a plot perspective as he's supposed to be a reliably programed "Skin Job", but it's a hard-ish ask to follow him about as the protagonist for nearly three hours. Harrison Ford only appears in the third act, which was like opening a window. Things are hotting up in this future. A prequel to a future war it seems, and then the film ends. It's left open for a sequel, but I don't think that's going to happen.

[Indian Ink]

James Bond; On Her Majesty's Secret Service 1969. It's been at least twenty years since I last saw this one and I was unsatisfied with it this time. George Lazenby's Bond seems to be wrapped in plastic most of the time. His Bond doesn't breath for me. So many times I want to jump into the directors chair and tell him to do it again. About the only time he seems real is when he's looking at and talking to Diana Rigg. I guess he was more a reactive actor than someone who can be convincing when acting in a empty room or crowd of people.

[ed2962]

Hell Or High Water ( 2016). Ok maybe 2 and 3/4 stars? Two brothers go on a bank robbing spree across Texas as they are chased by Jeff Bridges and his partner. As the story goes on, we learn that there's a specific purpose to their crimes. Jeff Bridges character does this sorta "politically correct racism"...perhaps? But having said that the real "bad guy" turns out to be spoilers:

"the banks" and I wish the script went into the economic reasons exactly why small towns in rural America are dying and explaining predatory practices of some banks, rather than Chris Pine's character saying at the end that being poor is a "disease".

end of spoilers

[ed2962]

Matrix Resurrection (2021) 2 and a half stars. I get that the Wachowskis didn't really want to do this movie, but Warner Bros were going to do it regardless. As such, the best part was the meta commentary in the first act. Having said that I think there's still an interesting story you could have done exploring deeper issues of identity, sexuality, and reality within the established lore. And Lana and her writers missed that opportunity.
Having said that...
I likedspoilers:

the idea that the humans were able to form an alliance with sentient machines

end of spoilers

I really didn't like that spoilers:

Trinity was basically reduced to plot device/damsel in distress

end of spoilers

[Scott Taylor]

Blade Runner 2049. Looked amazing. Pity I didn't see it on the big screen, but then today's large home TVs are a hell of a step up from those fuzzy box things from my childhood. Not a perfect film however. I found Ryan Gosling's character a little unengaging, which makes sense from a plot perspective as he's supposed to be a reliably programed "Skin Job", but it's a hard-ish ask to follow him about as the protagonist for nearly three hours. Harrison Ford only appears in the third act, which was like opening a window. Things are hotting up in this future. A prequel to a future war it seems, and then the film ends. It's left open for a sequel, but I don't think that's going to happen.

This was a movie that was really enhanced by the theatre experience. With the cinematography and score, it just made the movie better than its somewhat drawn out plot.

[Deathstroke]

I saw Marry Me this morning and while I'm not exactly what you would call a romantic in any way, shape or form, I actually did enjoy the movie. The plotline runs as you would expect from the film's synopsis but I liked the performances and the script actively avoided insulting my intelligence. That's a win in my book.

[Mormel]

After a month of being low on funds plus not being able to go last week due to a nasty cough, I finally went to the movie theatre today to see Hytty Nro 6 ('Cabine Nr. 6'). It's a road movie about Finnish archeology student Laura (portrayed by Seidi Haarla) who is studying/living in Moscow and one day takes the train to Murmansk to see prehistoric rock paintings. On the train, she has to share a cabin with a coarse Russian young man named Lyokha (played by Yuriy Borisov) who is travelling there to work in a mine. On the trip there, the mismatched couple slowly grow more accustomed to each other.

I thought it was quite a good movie, though I did have some minor issues with how fast the shift was between Laura being creeped out and annoyed by Lyokha and then coming around to sympathize with him. Also a central plot point gets a twist toward the end that makes several characters look a bit dumb.

Still, if you enjoy road movies, it's well worth checking out, and the performances of both Haarla and Borisov are charming and very convincing.