Last film you saw, vol. 6

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Highlander (1986)

"I've been alive for four and a half centuries, and I cannot die.
-Well, everyone has got their problems."

Centurion (2010)

"I've never seen a general so beloved of his men.
-Well, in training he is our scholar, at feast he is our father, in the ranks he is our brother, and in battle he is the god, we pray, to save our souls.
Where did you read that?
-It's writ on the sh**house wall, sir."

Another fictional speculation (but a pretty good one) on the mysterious fate of the real-life ninth legion in Caledonia. Good cast.

Bronson reminded me a tad of Clockwork Orange even though they are dimensions apart. Alex is even more repugnant, a loathsome serial killer, but the protagonist of the story to a large degree. I feel like Bronson is an asshole, but more innocuous, in the way he just wanted to be famous even if it meant being a famous prisoner. I have no problem watching movies about scumbags if its entertaining. Godfather, Scarface....there is a certain sense of jealous machismo.

Agreed and I love all those movies. And I could see the Clockwork analogies, although Alex only killed one person and that wasn't planned, so he's not technically a serial killer.

Finally! I watched that last week with my dad, and I kept hitting F5 because "Space Cop's gonna chime in on this because no way he won't." Good thing I didn't hold my breath waiting up for you!

Ha. Yeah, it was actually nearing the top of my Netflix queue, but I boosted it after your review. I'll probably buy it some day.

[Mister.Weirdo Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Mister.Weirdo]

Absolutely loved it. Gorgeous animation, and the last act made me bawl like a baby. I'll have the song Remember Me stuck in my head for a while.

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Compulsion (1959)

"If there is any way of destroying hatred and all that goes with it, it's not through evil and hatred and cruelty, but through charity, love, understanding."

A pretty good dramatization of the Leopold and Loeb murder/case with Orson Welles playing the Clarence Darrow stand-in.

Vampire Academy (2014)

"It is never the girl's fault."

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Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)

"Sanitation."

tl;dr -- Good pacing a crisp visuals. Nothing else really made an impression.


I really have to say it's laughable that hyper-sensitive fans of the Prequel Trilogy, hearing the first spoken words in the film ("This will begin to make things right"), took it as a personal attack by the filmmakers against George Lucas. One has to be severely delusional because the opening text crawl and the subject on every character's lips is "shit got bad because Luke left."

Phasma being chrome-plated feels like a "because we can" move more than anything else. We're not given any impression whatsoever that she leads a particularly renowned battalion. Is the chrome plating a mark of her being a captain? She's already got the cape. Is it a mark of her unit? Then why do all her subordinates look like literally every other unit's troops? A special costume for nobody special.

Rey is a combination of Farmhand Luke and Uncle Owen. I kind of like that she carries a staff, because going off Darth Nihilus from the Star Wars Legacy comics Dark Horse used to publish, I kind of want her to build her own saber staff in The Last Jedi. Given the contents of Awakens and that Disney is bringing Abrams back in, unless there's a very creative writer this time around, I doubt we'll see anything so daring.

I kind of liked Finn. (He had style with Poe Damaran's jacket, too!). But if he spent his whole life as a soldier, then he really could have expressed more competence and confidence in his actions. Yeah, he is really caught up in all the whackaloon shit that's hitting the fan, but he screams of "I'm not a soldier, I'm a civilian, bitch!" the entire film. Embarrassing. Hopefully he's better in the sequel.

Han and Chewie were good to see again. I was genuinely amused by him arguing with the Irish Space Thug about not making deals with both groups. Made me flinch to see the Falcon in such shitty condition, but at least she's in better hands now (probably never going to be as good as it was in the Original Trilogy, because it didn't seem like it was fully repaired by THE RESISTANCE before jetting off to find Luke).

The whole Resistance/First Order thing is pathetically absurd. The Empire fell so fucking bad that a "better than" society rose up, despite the fact that it was clearly meant to be a long-term society without micro-management by Vader/Palpatine? I could get that a new, hardline division meant to be the cutting edge against the Rebellion, calling itself the First Order, could be established and begins to take the fight to the Alliance moreso than ever before, but nothing like that happens; we just get a Do-Over Empire. And instead of it being all-white Englishmen, now everyone is young, attractive, and diverse. It's literally the Disney Empire. I expect a tween sitcom on all twenty versions of the Disney Channel starting next year.

Same goes for the Rebel Alliance/Republic: why do we need "The Resistance" when we already have the Rebel Alliance? That's fucking stupid. The planets that the Third Death Star we outright stated to be part of the Republic, which meant the First Order attached another society, not some militant gang's hideout. Establishing a Republic means you have a formal government in place, and that means there is no Resistance, there is an Army and a Navy and so on.

BB-8 was actually a good stand-in for R2, had plenty of surprises of his own. I also got a chuckle when Threepio mentioned his red arm, such a master of the obvious.

Kylo Ren, alias He Who Exists to Sell Toys. Outfit is a GQ version of Vader with a Wal-Mart Halloween leftover mask. Voice is a bad parody of Tom Hardy's Bane (holy shit, either fix his voice or never have the helmet on, because this is just sad). Blaster bolt-stopping power, yet he can barely hold his own against people with even less duelist training than him? When he was fighting Rey at the end, and he gives his eye-rollingly-late attempt to seduce her into joining him, it came across like an afterthought to have him say anything at all (her response was equally ham-fisted). On that note, during Han and Ren's confrontation, it felt like Han should have mentioned how Luke was similarly tempted by Vader/Palpatine, who wanted Luke to replace his imperfect apprentice and how Snoke would do the same to Ren using Rey, but that potential became a missed opportunity.

Snoke was a repeat of Episode V's holographic Emperor. Other than tidbits, we really don't get anything about him that makes him a threat other than his position (he doesn't come across as particularly insightful on anything, just repeats the "bring him to me" line Palpatine did). I kind of like his scarring and emaciation, hopefully we get actual visuals of him in Last Jedi and not just more holograms. A sales pitch to Rey, a dark side perspective that allows us to understand why and how he was able to seduce Ren would also be appreciated.

Starkiller Base. I can't decide how hard I want to snort in derision of how it's a Star Wars version of a kid frying ants with a magnifying lens. Should have just name-dropped Deek Starkiller from The Star Wars instead.

Luke should have been sitting on a rock and not had his hood up, and the awkwardly-lengthy scene where Rey returns his father's lightsaber felt like it should have had dialog instead of mindless silence, because goddamn that moment dragged horribly.

Watching A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back is a better use of time.

I had a chicken sandwich at TGI Friday's for dinner. It had a lot of consistency and substance. This film doesn't.

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Scrooge (1970)

"Remember Scrooge, time is short, and suddenly, you're not there any more."

A Christmas Carol (1984)

"You're devilishly hard to have conversation with."

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The Hateful Eight (2015)

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Lucky Number Slevin (2006)

"I'm short for my height."

Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004)

"When you close your eyes do you see Hell?"

My super moon movie. It has werewolves and snow, so it seemed a good choice for the December full moon.

[Mister Ed Horse of a Different Color Find all posts View Profile Close Mister Ed]

I saw Wonderstruck this weekend.



Saw it with my two younger kids, and I liked it. I was worried that the kids would hate it because it was a bit slow-paced, but they seemed to enjoy it, too.

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From Caligari to Hitler: German Cinema in the Age of the Masses (2014)

"These are conceptualizations trying to make the world comprehensible which have a long tradition in Germany and which are remarkably frequent in Weimar cinema, much more so than in Hollywood at the time."

47 Meters Down (2017)

"Think of the pictures."

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Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)

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Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004)

"When you close your eyes do you see Hell?"

My super moon movie. It has werewolves and snow, so it seemed a good choice for the December full moon.

Excellent choice, I love the Ginger Snaps movies.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

Sharknado: The 4th Awakens (2016)

"So, there's a nuclear sharknado plowing through the United States now?"

Streets of Fire (1984)

"Everywhere I go, there's always an a**hole."

Excellent choice, I love the Ginger Snaps movies.

I love all three. I got into them about the time the third came out. It was right around when I was getting deeper into the horror community with conventions and Fangoria and there was a real buzz about these indie Canadian werewolf movies.

[BLACK HAND Green Lantern Initiate Find all posts View Profile Close BLACK HAND]

I'm not as big into part three as I am the first two.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

Night of the Comet (1984)

"Daddy would have gotten us Uzis."

Black Christmas (1974)

"These broads would hump the Leaning Tower of Pisa if they could get up there!"

A friend came over for a couple Christmas-set horror flicks.

I'm not as big into part three as I am the first two.

Yeah, I'd say it was weakest of the three, but I remember liking it. I haven't seen it in a while, though and only once or twice.

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

Rogue One (2016)

"You may fire when ready."

An actual Star Wars film, not a pantomime. Glad to have something of quality to wash the sour taste of the last one away.

Seeing this cover the espionage angle was different and refreshing, not focusing on the unending conflict between the Jedi and Sith/light side and dark side; it's a more grounded, little-guys-caught-up-in-the-shit take on a cosmic war.

I would have liked to see a bit more into Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn doesn't do a bad job acting at all, very good in fact, but his character isn't developed very deeply). He had a unique outfit that treads the line between establishing a specific look for the Imperial science officers and the old Expanded Universe's Grand Admirals.

Took me a while, but I eventually realized that Hannibal Goddamn Lecter is Jyn Erso's dad. (I wonder if she'd still side with the Rebellion if she knew what he did to symphony players who fail to impress?). He did a good job, especially during his holographic message (could actually feel his mounting desperation and undercover sabotage, his attempt to explain to Jyn how he still loves her and had to take one for the team).

In comparison, I didn't even recognize Forest Whitaker as the extremist Rebel outcast. Maybe it's because he didn't use his famous Eye? He was unnerving, a kind of shell of himself, in a way made me think of Darth Vader (the mechanical legs, the breathing apparatus).

I have to say seeing Guy Henry with Cushing's face, and the perfect recreation of voice and personality, really impressed me. Tarkin was a monumental Imperial figure, just as Cushing was a monumental actor, and it was incredible seeing him hand Krennic his ass multiple times. Also made me miss him and want to watch more of his classic stuff.

Oh hey, it's the jackass doctor with the death sentence in twelve systems! Looks like he decided to take the offer of a drink this time!

Oh hey, it's Scarif, Druidia's errant cousin!

Donnie Yen was born to be a Jedi.

Oh hey, it's Jimmy Smits, the drug dealer from the Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines cop comedy Running Scared! Boy, he's really turned his life around after being shot to death in Chicago! I hope nothing bad happens to him after the events of Rogue One, because this guy looks like he's going places from now on!

Seeing Vader's castle on Mustafar (which isn't named, surprisingly) was a stunner. It also reminded me of a couple other places Vader constructed: Bast Castle from Jedi Academy (game); and another castle Luke tears down in one of the old novels (I vaguely remember reading how he wanted to turn it into more than a horrible dungeon, felt he failed, used the Force to crumble everything and leaves).

Shame that the Battle of Scarif is so devastating to the planet's surface, because shit is it beautiful.

Jyn looked great in that Imperial costume. Kind of wish she he used those hockey sticks to smack someone and kept the suit on longer.

Vader rampage is horrifying, delicious gravy. Poor Rebel bastards.

Going to need to get this wonderful gem for my collection. This is how you make a Star Wars film.