Movies Rate and Discuss the Last Movie You Saw v.16

Taxi Driver (1976)

A lot of people consider this among Scorsese’s best films, along with Raging Bull and Goodfellas. This was my first time watching it. While I can appreciate it, it wasn’t really my personal cup of tea, and maybe it’s too “avant- guard” for me as I can’t really see why people list among the best of Scorsese’s films.

I liked Deniro’s performance and also thought it had pretty great cinematography, but beyond that nothing else really clicked for me. I wouldn’t have it in my top 5 Scorsese movies. Hell, maybe not even in my top 10 Scorsese movies.

What I find particularly interesting is that I, like many people, thought the epilogue was effectively a dream sequence, that our protagonist died and everything at the end was his dying thoughts of him being considered a hero. However, apparently both Scorsese and the screenwriter have flat out rejected that theory and have said that the ending is literally happening, it’s not a figment of his imagination. Now maybe they’re just taking the piss with those comments, because I find that concept somewhat ridiculous, in particular Cybil Shepherd’s character seemingly reconciling with Travis. If that really happened then it calls for an incredulous Cormier gif imo.

Not sure how to score it. I feel like if I go lower than a 7 I’ll be accused of not appreciating cinema at best; at worst I’ll be accused of being a Neanderthal moron who’s too stupid to understand the movie to be scoring it. On the other hand I just didn’t like it enough to score it higher than a 7. So I’m just going to call it a 7.

7/10
 
Law Talkin’ Guy said:
Taxi Driver (1976)

A lot of people consider this among Scorsese’s best films, along with Raging Bull and Goodfellas. This was my first time watching it. While I can appreciate it, it wasn’t really my personal cup of tea, and maybe it’s too “avant- guard” for me as I can’t really see why people list among the best of Scorsese’s films.

I liked Deniro’s performance and also thought it had pretty great cinematography, but beyond that nothing else really clicked for me. I wouldn’t have it in my top 5 Scorsese movies. Hell, maybe not even in my top 10 Scorsese movies.

What I find particularly interesting is that I, like many people, thought the epilogue was effectively a dream sequence, that our protagonist died and everything at the end was his dying thoughts of him being considered a hero. However, apparently both Scorsese and the screenwriter have flat out rejected that theory and have said that the ending is literally happening, it’s not a figment of his imagination. Now maybe they’re just taking the piss with those comments, because I find that concept somewhat ridiculous, in particular Cybil Shepherd’s character seemingly reconciling with Travis. If that really happened then it calls for an incredulous Cormier gif imo.

Not sure how to score it. I feel like if I go lower than a 7 I’ll be accused of not appreciating cinema at best; at worst I’ll be accused of being a Neanderthal moron who’s too stupid to understand the movie to be scoring it. On the other hand I just didn’t like it enough to score it higher than a 7. So I’m just going to call it a 7.

7/10
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7/10...

You breaking my chops? If you're gonna break my chops you can take it on the arches right now you understand?
 
Law Talkin’ Guy said:
Taxi Driver (1976)

A lot of people consider this among Scorsese’s best films, along with Raging Bull and Goodfellas. This was my first time watching it. While I can appreciate it, it wasn’t really my personal cup of tea, and maybe it’s too “avant- guard” for me as I can’t really see why people list among the best of Scorsese’s films.

I liked Deniro’s performance and also thought it had pretty great cinematography, but beyond that nothing else really clicked for me. I wouldn’t have it in my top 5 Scorsese movies. Hell, maybe not even in my top 10 Scorsese movies.

What I find particularly interesting is that I, like many people, thought the epilogue was effectively a dream sequence, that our protagonist died and everything at the end was his dying thoughts of him being considered a hero. However, apparently both Scorsese and the screenwriter have flat out rejected that theory and have said that the ending is literally happening, it’s not a figment of his imagination. Now maybe they’re just taking the piss with those comments, because I find that concept somewhat ridiculous, in particular Cybil Shepherd’s character seemingly reconciling with Travis. If that really happened then it calls for an incredulous Cormier gif imo.

Not sure how to score it. I fe
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If one thing has to be a dream sequence it has to be the Cybil Shepherd part right? Yeah I dont know.

I mean...if none of it is a dream then it is a pretty big left turn way to end the movie.
 
revoltub said:
If one thing has to be a dream sequence it has to be the Cybil Shepherd part right? Yeah I dont know.

I mean...if none of it is a dream then it is a pretty big left turn way to end the movie.
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Well that’s why I almost feel like Scorsese and Schrader are trolling. Like her getting in his Cab and being all nice to him is just so dubious to be real.
 
Rewatched Upgrade last night and forgot how good that was. A possible high 8 or low 9 for me.

The story and the set up are done well, the camera work combined with the movements and choice of music and sounds were excellent. If anything this probably could've used a good 15-20 minutes more to tie up the movie a bit cleaner. Those lurking camera shots that Whannell used in the Invisible Man later on were nicely done, just letting the scene breathe for a moment.
 
last night I watched 2 films....

Mad Max: Fury Road
10/10

Trust me I dont give out high scores easily, but this movie is damn near perfect. Kept me engrossed every single step of the way. The real deal special effects. The characters and environment. Charlize Theron is a total bad ass while showing enough vulnerabilities to keep her character realistic. I could watch this movie every year and not get bored of it.

The Marksmen
5/10

2021 Liam neeson film that checks all the boxes. Hes a former marine corps vet who is down on his luck in his older age who stumbles across a mother and son crossing the border illegally who are being chased by the cartel. Liam decides hes going to use his special set of tools to help the son escape the clutches of the pursuing cartel. You can tell this movie was shot on the cheap and brings nothing fresh to the genre. Many scenes are quite unrealistic including liam winning a hand to hand fight vs a cartel member who should be able to toss him like a ragdoll. Bad guys walking out into open areas like sitting ducks just waiting to get picked off etc... The movie tries to create an emotional bond between the boy and liam neeson that doesnt for 1 second feel genuine. WIth all those negatives said, I was interested throughout to see where it went and I thought the bad guys carried the film and seemed imposing.
 
Aftersun 4.5/5
holy fuck, what a devastating character study about depression. the way it depicts & structures a daughter’s attempt to make sense of her loss & love through her memories & recollections brought on by watching the video clips of a vacation recorded on a camera is super impressive. it really captures that internal aspect of the human psyche in a way that is both artistic & relatable. the final scene hit me so fucking hard. i was a mess.
 
MemphisBelleFlyingFortress-poster.jpg


The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress

The introduction of the documentary is the arming of the B-17 Flying Fortress - Memphis Belle and other military aircraft at an air base in England in World War 2. The Memphis Belle will partake in an U.S. bombing mission on enemy targets in Germany. The American troops met the Majesties, the King and Queen of England. I recommend the documentary
 
Tiger 131: Revisited

In 1943, a German Tiger tank was captured by British troops in North Africa. Tiger 131 would become the most recognizable tank of World War 2. The content was stretched out a bit in the documentary. I enjoyed the film for its originality.
 
METAL LORDS (2022)

This movie suffers by comparison to what is in the running for my favorite movie of the last ten or fifteen years in Sing Street but it's a perfectly serviceable high school band movie. It works pretty well at taking what was cool in the 1970s to 1990s and having some teenagers in 2022 trying to pull it off and make it cool again. The actors do a solid job.

Has some funny moments. Has one straight up awesome moment when the main character gets sick of drumming to Ed Sheeran like he's supposed to and turns "In Love with the Shape of You" into something better than it should be coming from a garage band.

The lead actor is quite good. Good at the mildly dramatic stuff, good with comedic delivery when required. If the audience doesn't like him then the movie probably has a hard time staying above water. But it's easy to like him. He reminded me of kids I knew back in the day, where they were talented at various things and could have been quite popular but had an insecure friend or friends who kept them down at their level at times.

6.4 / 10.
 
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Disconnect (2012)
5/10

If I was rating this movie based on appreciation of the acting, the storyline, the plot, the message it was delivering then it would be 2 points higher because I thought it delivered on all those things.

However it just was not very enjoyable to watch and not a movie I would recommend or ever watch again.

It’s about 3 interlocking stories that are all quite sad and depressing.

One story is of a marriage that is falling apart and the couple have their identity stolen and bank account wiped out so they hire a PI to help figure out who did it only to realize all the lies they are hiding from each other.

Second story is A teenage high school boy who is shy and a loner who gets bullied by a couple class mates and he attempts suicide and goes into a coma and the family is left trying to pick up the pieces while realizing how they weren’t there for him. Also the bully is dealing with his own moral repercussions and shitty home life

Third story is a young man who is part of a group of teens including some minors who are exploited to doing nude online cam shows for a pimp and the young man falls for a girl who works in the news and wants to break the story but starts falling for him as well.
 
BisexualMMA said:
METAL LORDS (2022)

This movie suffers by comparison to what is in the running for my favorite movie of the last ten or fifteen years in Sing Street but it's a perfectly serviceable high school band movie. It works pretty well at taking what was cool in the 1970s to 1990s and having some teenagers in 2022 trying to pull it off and make it cool again. The actors do a solid job.

Has some funny moments. Has one straight up awesome moment when the main character gets sick of drumming to Ed Sheeran like he's supposed to and turns "In Love with the Shape of You" into something better than it should be coming from a garage band.

The lead actor is quite good. Good at the mildly dramatic stuff, good with comedic delivery when required. If the audience doesn't like him then the movie probably has a hard time staying above water. But it's easy to like him. He reminded me of kids I knew back in the day, where they were talented at various things and could have been quite popular but had an insecure friend or friends who kept them down at their level at times.

6.4 / 10.
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Metal Lords was fun for what it was. I watched Sing Street within the past couple of months and absolutely loved it. Just a great film all around. It reminded me a bit of my own high school experiences with being a weirdo and starting a band. Off the strength of Sing Street I then watched Begin Again and it was a let down. It had its moments but overall I really didn't like it. Ruffalo was decent, there was a genuine feel good moment when Hailee Steinfeld's character gets to sit in on one of the recordings, but overall it wasn't nearly as good as Sing Street. I'm debating on if I want to watch Flora and Son or not.
 
ufcfan4 said:
Bram Stoker's Dracula

It has its flaws but I think this is pretty easily one of FFC's better post-1985 films. I guess someone can argue that it's style over substance, but I don't think there's really anything wrong with that in this type of film. The aesthetics, the production design, the makeup, the practical effects are all very impressive and memorable. If that's all the film had going for it, it would still be pretty solid, in my opinion. Factor in, too, though that you have a notably good performance by the awesome Gary Oldman, and that just enhances the experience. One of the things that always sticks out to me when I watch this movie is that opening scene. To me, it's one of those opening sequences that is extremely effective in setting the tone for the film. Blade, another solid vampire-themed movie, also had an opening scene like that. In both cases, despite being very different, I would argue that the opening was the ideal manner to introduce the main character.

As for the drawbacks, they've been discussed ad nauseum. I never found Keanu bad enough in the film that he really took away from my enjoyment of it, but it's obvious that he was miscast. I really do feel that there are certain actors who are just too modern for period pieces. He fits that bill. The pseudo-British accent he's doing, too, is sort of odd because it uneasily fuses with his more typical surfer dude sound. At the end of the day, Reeves is involved in one of the coolest sequences in the film- when Harker visits Dracula in Transylvania. But the awesomeness of that scene is really due to Oldman and to the distinctly unnerving look of the character in his elderly form.

This probably isn't the best adaptation of the novel, but I think it's pretty damn good. Recommended.

7.5/10
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I liked this film when I first saw it but I have come to enjoy it even more over the years.

Sure, Reeves is terrible but everybody else is pretty good. Oldman is incredible. Winona is beautiful. Hopkins is delightfully weird (the sheer weirdness of his character is almost lost in a movie like this).

More importantly Coppola absolutely commits to his vision for the movie. The film looks incredible. It may be over the top but it is consistently over the top.

I agree with you as well about the opening scene. Great set up.
 
Ex Machina (UK, 2014)

Science fiction psychological thriller written and directed by Alex Garland and starring Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, and Sonoya Mizuno.

This is a film best enjoyed without preconceptions and therefore I will say nothing about the plot. Every time I watch this film I wish that I could be seeing it again for the first time.

The movie is particularly special in that it both explores high end science fiction concepts & philosophy and is also completely effective as a psychological thriller.

One of my favourite films.

Rating: 10/10

Some random observations from my latest re-watch:

1. The title is a reference to Deus ex Machina and I always thought the point was the Ava represented "from the machine". That is, the machine without the presence of (a) God. That could be true but if we look at it from Ava's perspective, the arrival of Caleb is very much a deus ex machina for her. She is trapped by Nathan and has no way to escape. Inexplicably Caleb arrives and provides Ava with a potential means of escape. That is, her unsolvable problem is resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence.

2. The Ava interview sessions cleverly use space. Ava's room is relatively large and she can walk around and even disappear from view. Caleb sits in a relatively small enclosure to conduct the interviews. It subtly shifts the power dynamics between the two.

Additionally, the film highlights that Caleb is a type of prisoner in the building as well. His card only works for certain doors, he freaks out his first night when the power spike causes a partial lockdown, and the second scene of the movie highlights the remoteness of the building. It displays Nathan's dominance and control of the physical space that others are allowed to occupy. (I still think that there is a possibility that Nathan never planned for Caleb to ever leave. Why would Nathan ever put his faith in an NDA? He had a sufficient God complex that eliminating Caleb in the name of his larger mission would be easily justifiable in his own mind. On the other hand, the helicopter did arrive on the last day and so it is more likely that the plan really was for Caleb to leave after one week.).

I remain curious why Ava initially caused the power spikes. I presume that she desperately wanted to escape and was simply testing every means at her disposal. Later, of course, she used the selective power outrages to recruit Caleb as her ally. I don't see how she could have anticipated that the nighttime power spikes would lead Nathan to explain to Caleb how the security systems respond to the outages.

3. As Ava completes her escape, she glances down at Kyoko but does nothing to help her. Kyoko may be repairable but Ava does not care. She treats Kyoko much like she treats Caleb, a tool that is no longer needed. It points to Ava being unable to feel empathy and therefore perhaps not truly conscious. The counter argument is that Ava's only "teachers" have been Nathan and Caleb, both men who wanted to use her in different ways. Therefore, Ava could be capable of empathy but simply lacks it because of her "upbringing".

4. As Ava walks around the upstairs of the complex we see her for the first time when she is not being observed and has no reason to act. She smiles and seems filled with happiness. This supports the notion that she is sentient in that she expresses emotion purely for herself. Up to that point, we could argue that every emotion was tied to her goal to escape (she may have been faking emotion to further her goal).

Here is one of the most incredible dance scenes ever put on film:

 
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eddymotto said:
Ex Machina (UK, 2014)

Science fiction psychological thriller written and directed by Alex Garland and starring Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, and Sonoya Mizuno.

This is a film best enjoyed without preconceptions and therefore I will say nothing about the plot. Every time I watch this film I wish that I could be seeing it again for the first time.

The movie is particularly special in that it both explores high end science fiction concepts & philosophy and is also completely effective as a psychological thriller.

One of my favourite films.

Rating: 10/10

Some random observations from my latest re-watch:

1. The title is a reference to Deus ex Machina and I always thought the point was the Ava represented "from the machine". That is, the machine without the presence of (a) God. That could be true but if we look at it from Ava's perspective, the arrival of Caleb is very much a deus ex machina for her. She is trapped by Nathan and has no way to escape. Inexplicably Caleb arrives and provides Ava with a potential means of escape. That is, her unsolvable problem is resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence.

2. The Ava interview sessions cleverly use space. Ava's room is relatively large and she can walk around and even disappear from view. Caleb sits in a relatively small enclosure to conduct the interviews. It subtly shifts the power dynamics between the two.

Additionally, the film highlights that Caleb is a type of prisoner in the building as well. His card only works for certain doors, he freaks out his first night when the power spike causes a partial lockdown, and the second scene of the movie highlights the remoteness of the building. It displays Nathan's dominance and control of the physical space that others are allowed to occupy. (I still think that there is a possibility that Nathan never planned for Caleb to ever leave. Why would Nathan ever put his faith in an NDA? He had a sufficient God complex that eliminating Caleb in the name of his larger mission would be easily justifiable in his own mind. On the other hand, the helicopter did arrive on the last day and so it is more likely that the plan really was for Caleb to leave after one week.).

I remain curious why Ava initially caused the power spikes. I presume that she desperately wanted to escape and was simply testing every means at her disposal. Later, of course, she used the selective power outrages to recruit Caleb as her ally. I don't see how she could have anticipated that the nighttime power spikes would lead Nathan to explain to Caleb how the security systems respond to the outages.

3. As Ava completes her escape, she glances down at Kyoko but does nothing to help her. Kyoko may be repairable but Ava does not care. She treats Kyoko much like she treats Caleb, a tool that is no longer needed. It points to Ava being unable to feel empathy and therefore perhaps not truly conscious. The counter argument is that Ava's only "teachers" have been Nathan and Caleb, both men who wanted to use her in different ways. Therefore, Ava could be capable of empathy but simply lacks it because she of her "upbringing".

4. As Ava walks around the upstairs of the complex we see her for the first time when she is not being observed and has no reason to act. She smiles and seems filled with happiness. This supports the notion that she is sentient in that she expresses emotion purely for herself. Up to that point, we could argue that every emotion was tied to her goal to escape (she may have been faking emotion to further her goal).

Here is one of the most incredible dance scenes ever put on film:

Click to expand...


yeah I thought it was very good. Have you seen Her? Similar concept but leans more dark comedy
 
Combat Obscura (USA, 2018)

Documentary film following a group of marines during the war in Afghanistan circa 2011/2012.

The footage was originally shot by a marine videographer and was meant for recruiting and propaganda purposes. The videographer, lance corporal Miles Lagoze, was able to get extraneous footage declassified and eventually turned it into this documentary. The Marine Corps threatened him with a lawsuit to block the film but ultimately relented.

The film is noteworthy in that it has no narration. We are dropped into each scene without context. There are small scenes where soldiers speak directly to the camera but these are mostly soldiers introducing themselves or saying hello to their families back home.

I found the film jarring at first but then got into it as I got used to the style. The ferocity of the action also increased as the film went along. It is chilling stuff. Lots of scenes of young men acting dumb. Lots of drug use. Lots of violence.

In one scene the marines approach the body of an Afghani man they just shot and killed "like a deer". They are disappointed to learn that he does not have a weapon and they realize he was just a shopkeeper. They discuss hiding his body so that their CO does not see it. One of the soldiers turns to the cameraman and tells him to stop recording.

One scene shows soldiers checking the fingerprints of a severed hand.

One of the last scenes is a firefight where a marine gets shot in the head. The medic struggles to wrap the wound a second time after the bandage comes off. The stress level of the group is at 100 as they are fighting for their lives while trying to get their fallen comrade to a medical helicopter.

The lack of narration means that the audience will have very different reactions. The story we piece together from the disparate scenes will say as much about the audience as the material. Some will see a group of immature, racist, psychotic young men steeped in violence and spreading death wherever they go. Others will see brave young men thrust into an alien, hostile environment where they are ground down through the relentless horror of war.

Rating: 7/10

 
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