[Redcarmoose]

The Spy - 5.5/10

Pretty slow and not very interesting during most of the movie.
I actually am not sure why I kept watching. It's not quite boring, but close.
The acting by Sacha Baron Cohen is actually really good. Not once did I think I was watching Borat on the screen
I hope he gets to do even more serious movies like this.

Fans of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" might like this one more than me.
I prefer "The Lives of Others".
BTW some scenes have a very faded look. I can't stand this and why do they do it?! Doesn't add anything to the movie!
The actual story this is based on might be a lot more interesting. Maybe there is a documentary about it.

White Light, Black Rain - 10/10

Yes, one of the best documentaries about the bombing of Hiroshima there is I think.

Living Undocumented - 9/10

I forgot to score this one. I really liked it, but one scene towards the end felt WAY too scripted.
A very good related series is called "Go Back to Where you came from".
It's a reality show from Australia and was quite good IMO.
They made somewhat famous people experience what it's like to live as an undocumented migrant coming in from a boat etc.
It was good enough for there to be 3 seasons.
On it were people who had many different points of views on the subject of "illegal immigration".

PS it's amazing how in Australian TV shows like this you can use the F-word with no problem (or am I wrong?). Here in the USA you could never do that unless it was on something like HBO. Even on cable TV it's hard to get away with. There's a limit of maybe once or twice per season.

One very very underrated movie on the subject is "El Norte". There is a really good Criterion release of it on blu-ray and it's a must see.

White Light, Black Rain - 10/10

I will never forget that movie. Surprised a movie like that could even be made.

 

[Zojokkeli]

The House that Jack Built
7/10

A story about a serial killer reminiscing his past ”career.”

I don’t recall a movie making me this uncomfortable ever, except maybe in the case of Irreversible. Technically the movie was excellent, but the brutality makes it hard to watch at times. In the beginning there was a touch of dark humour to the movie, but ”incidents” 3 and 4 were just plain bleak and disgusting. All in all, a good movie I’ll never want to watch again.

 

[DLeeWebb]

"Open House" [3.0/10]: IMDb describes this film as, "A teenager and his mother find themselves besieged by threatening forces when they move into a new house." The forces were not that threatening and the ending made me mad to have devoted the necessary time to get to the ending. I didn't expect much from this Netflix film, and I didn't get much.

 

[DLeeWebb]

"Assimilate" [No Rating Possible]: "Three friends making a web series about their town discover that their neighbors are being killed and replaced by creatures who are perfect copies of their victims." I am usually generous with my evaluation of films in this venue, and generally everywhere else. However this film and the one above were just exordinarily bad in my humble opinion. I was maybe twenty minutes into Assimilate and I just thought, "I'm done. I willingly admit that maybe I didn't give it an adequate chance. Thirty minutes was enough for me to conclude that I had been there, done this...c'mon Netflix, I love you, but really.

 

[tru blu]

"Terminator: Dark Fate" [5/10]: It's a wild ride. Sarah Connor is back. She'd still like to off T-800 Schwarzenegger — who's been raising a kid in retirement — but that'll have to wait until they're done with the latest class of shapeshifting Terminator, a Rev-9, who's on a mission in Mexico.

 

[tdockweiler]

The Assassination of Gianni Versace - 10/10

Unfortunate name, but easily one of the best TV shows i've ever seen.
My first thought when seeing this listed was "Why would anyone want to watch this?". Don't do that!
Pretty much perfect from start to finish and up there with something like "Breaking Bad" and "Chernobyl".
I actually only bothered to watch this because I liked another series by the same people about the OJ Simpson trial.
There's a few really disturbing parts without actually showing much violence on screen. Pretty sad too during parts.
I actually watched probably 6 hours of this in one night and then found myself not being able to sleep!
There's actually a lot of different storylines in this about many of the different characters and somehow they made them all equally interesting.

 

[lugnut]

The House that Jack Built
7/10

A story about a serial killer reminiscing his past ”career.”

I don’t recall a movie making me this uncomfortable ever, except maybe in the case of Irreversible. Technically the movie was excellent, but the brutality makes it hard to watch at times. In the beginning there was a touch of dark humour to the movie, but ”incidents” 3 and 4 were just plain bleak and disgusting. All in all, a good movie I’ll never want to watch again.

I agree, it made me very uncomfortable and not many things do. The scenes that involved Grumpy were the ones that got to me !

 

[tdockweiler]

The Devil Next Door - 9.5/10

Family man in Cleveland, Ohio is accused of being a Nazi death camp guard named "Ivan the Terrible".
You may have heard about this before, but if not, it would be best to watch the documentary first and then read up on the trial.
Found this so good that I watched all 5 or so hours in one night!
Netflix really does seem to produce the best documentaries.

 

[tdockweiler]

Shadow - 4.5/10

Latest movie from Zhang Yimou.
Pretty terrible and I found it rather ugly to look at. Might as well have been in black and white (which is perfectly OK).
Lots of overacting and it's pretty bad when you're almost laughing at death scenes that are supposed to be sad.
Strangely enough his movie "To Live" helped me get into Asian cinema back when I was 18 (along with films from Akira Kurosawa).
Back when video stores were around there was one store that had an entire floor filled with foreign films. I miss those days!
My main problem with this movie is that the story isn't that interesting. Not much fun to sit through and kind of boring.
The big battle scenes are kind of too ridiculous and more like something you'd see in a video game.

PS you can rent this for $1.99 on Amazon in HD. I rarely see rentals for that low. Even the purchase price was around $7!

 

[SilverEars]

Shadow - 4.5/10

Latest movie from Zhang Yimou.
Pretty terrible and I found it rather ugly to look at. Might as well have been in black and white (which is perfectly OK).
Lots of overacting and it's pretty bad when you're almost laughing at death scenes that are supposed to be sad.
Strangely enough his movie "To Live" helped me get into Asian cinema back when I was 18 (along with films from Akira Kurosawa).
Back when video stores were around there was one store that had an entire floor filled with foreign films. I miss those days!
My main problem with this movie is that the story isn't that interesting. Not much fun to sit through and kind of boring.
The big battle scenes are kind of too ridiculous and more like something you'd see in a video game.

PS you can rent this for $1.99 on Amazon in HD. I rarely see rentals for that low. Even the purchase price was around $7!

Zhang Yimou makes visual stunning Cinema.

Hero was my favorite, with House of flying dagger next, and then Curse of the Golden Flower. His new ones don't seem to get good reviews.

The Great Wall a flop, no? He shouldn't have went to Hollywood, which toxic and tainted with bad content. Even the name, "The great Wall" sounds like Hollywood cliche garbage.

I know Bong Joon Ho (Parasite writer/director) will not work on anything he doesn't write and have control over. He will not take Hollywood's mediocre scripts.

 

[tdockweiler]

Steamboat Bill Jr - 9/10

One of the first Buster Keaton movies i've seen. I now need to check into some of his other films.
It's free on the Tubi TV app (Fire HD etc) if you want to watch it. They have a way better selection of older movies than Netflix!
Hoping to rent "Our Hospitality" tonight.

 

[tdockweiler]

Our Hospitality - 10/10
Another Buster Keaton movie. Loved it and worth buying someday.
Hard to believe I went this long without seeing any of his movies.

Sherlock Jr - 6/10
This was another Buster Keaton movie that free when I rented the above.
It's really short and the only good parts are during the final chase sequence.

What the Health - 10/10

A must see really. You know what the most frustrating thing about seeing this movie was?
I learned that the American Diabetes Association, American Cancer Society and Susan G. Komen foundation all take money from corporations that sell disease causing foods (that they're trying to cure or prevent!).
Some of these organizations even have recipes on their websites that require foods with known carcinogens in them (cancer causing).
You ask anyone in these organizations about specific diets curing disease and they don't want to be interviewed or talk.
Why? Probably because they would lose money. These days you can probably get sued by the food industry.
I also am surprised that doctors receive so little education in nutrition. They're in the business to make money and not try to prevent disease.

 

[tdockweiler]

Midway (2019) - 10/10

Yes, for real. I loved it and there is not much I would change.
It's more of an action movie and not much time is really spent on character development at all.
This I actually didn't mind so much.
Acting was good and the CGI was actually pretty convincing, especially during the flight scenes.
Some complained about the dialogue, but I felt it was fine.

This is really nothing like "Pearl Harbor" IMO and felt more like an old 1940s WWII movie.
A lot of it reminded me of a mix between parts of Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Ike: Countdown to D-Day and Tora, Tora Tora.
Really not much from the original "Midway".
They did recreate a lot of scenes of actual battle footage (crashes on the carriers etc).

Critics seemed to hate this and I just don't know what they were expecting.
I haven't read a ton of books about the battle of Midway, but this seemed pretty accurate to me.

Probably Roland Emmerich's best movie.
Well I have to admit i'm a fan of his movies. Yet strangely two of his films are some of the worst movies i've ever seen (10,000BC and Godzilla).

BTW I tried to see this on Saturday, but only 2 front seats were left. I skipped it and went today at 9:45pm.
Glad I did. Not many people there and I got a really good spot.

 

[tdockweiler]

Peanut Butter Falcon - 9/10

Easily the most fun/entertaining movie i've seen this year. Pretty funny too.
Zak was just as funny as Shia and had some of the best lines in the movie.
It was so good I just didn't want it to end. Wish it was 4 hours long or they had a sequel or TV series.
PS Shia LaBeouf has always been a good actor to me ever since I saw him in "Holes".
It's actually hard to believe this is really him. He will get an oscar in the next 5 years
I think this is also one i'm going to go out and buy on blu-ray. I rarely do that these days.

If you can, watch this before you see the trailer. The trailer gives away too many good parts.

 

[oqvist]

Midway (2019) - 10/10

Yes, for real. I loved it and there is not much I would change.
It's more of an action movie and not much time is really spent on character development at all.
This I actually didn't mind so much.
Acting was good and the CGI was actually pretty convincing, especially during the flight scenes.
Some complained about the dialogue, but I felt it was fine.

This is really nothing like "Pearl Harbor" IMO and felt more like an old 1940s WWII movie.
A lot of it reminded me of a mix between parts of Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Ike: Countdown to D-Day and Tora, Tora Tora.
Really not much from the original "Midway".
They did recreate a lot of scenes of actual battle footage (crashes on the carriers etc).

Critics seemed to hate this and I just don't know what they were expecting.
I haven't read a ton of books about the battle of Midway, but this seemed pretty accurate to me.

Probably Roland Emmerich's best movie.
Well I have to admit i'm a fan of his movies. Yet strangely two of his films are some of the worst movies i've ever seen (10,000BC and Godzilla).

BTW I tried to see this on Saturday, but only 2 front seats were left. I skipped it and went today at 9:45pm.
Glad I did. Not many people there and I got a really good spot.

Kind of wish I saw this instead of LeMans 66.

Not really though because there is some nice moving photos of these awesome creations but everything is so silly about that movie. I don´t even know what kind of character Bale is trying to create with his overacting. Matt Damon is hard to judge he is always just the normal easy liked character but maybe that is challenging. The sillyness starts instantly with the at 7000 rpm... Not to mention the desperate attempt to try to make Ford the underdogs. They knew it wouldn´t work so there would be squabble within the minibosses. Movie is full of really silly bickering but it was needed I suppose to try to get any kind of underdog story going for that economically doped to the max project.

But it was kind of pleasant anyway the racing scenes was really nicely shot but it would fall flat on smaller screens I imagine.

Godzilla is a great movie btw. 10000 BC not so much.