Last movie you watched

[erilaz]

I stayed up way too late last night because of what was on the Movies! TV network:

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) — I was curious to see what they cut in order to show this on broadcast TV, since it was released with an X rating. Not much, surprisingly. They blurred out the nipples and butt cracks and silenced some "language" here and there, but they censored neither Lance's decapitation nor the bloody aftermath of the gun in Roxanne's mouth.

Bedazzled (1967) — Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's delightfully witty tale of a deal with the devil. "What rotten sins I've got working for me. It must be the wages."

[Moh]

The Shack: From a spiritual standpoint, I enjoyed it. Visually, it was stunning! My only real complaint was Sam Worthington's accent. I'm not being a hater, but maybe not get an Australian to play someone who's supposed to sound southern?
Girls Trip: If someone tries to tell you that this is like Bridesmaids... Don't listen to them. This is better than Bridesmaids, imo. It's very, uh, raunchy. So maybe not take anyone under 18 to see it. It was hysterical, and if they ever decide to make another one, I'll order my ticket in advance. Tiffany Haddish was amazing btw, I hope she gets more acting gigs after this.

[Zunu]

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

So yeah this is an objectively bad movie but I really enjoyed it. It took a bit of time to acclimate myself to the Dane DeHaan's cringe-inducing lead character, but once you do that, everything's fine. Provided you like films like the Fifth Element which take place in a sort of quirky, American-translated-into-European-and-back-into-American type SF universe. The CG character and set design is some of the most amazing I've ever seen in any film period. The female lead, Laureline played by Cara Delevingne, who seems to have one too many n's in her name, isn't traditionally beautiful but she's quite captivating. I've only ever seen her in Suicide Squad before, in a much different, more constrained role. (And Valerian, as weak as it is, is world's better than Suicide Squad) The movie would have benefited greatly from more Laureline and less Valerian. There were a few intimately voiced scenes where she slipped back into an English accent and it make me prefer that she had used her real voice in the entire film. It seemed pointless for her to affect an American accent at all except for the sake of the quirkiness I mentioned above, the idea that a movie about rough-and-tumble, shoot-first, order-disobeyin', lady-seducin' agents in a lawless universe has to be American-y in the first place, even though the characters live in a big giant asteroid-sized EU-ish space station. I saw a 3D but non-IMAX version. I'm looking forward to the 4K transfer for home viewing just to see some of the truly wondrous set pieces yet again. Although hopefully there will be a director/cast commentary so I can listen to that instead of to the absurdly banal dialog. Some behind-the-scenes mini-docs would be great too. There were a few characters that seemed like much improved Toydarian Star Wars creatures (e.g. Watto the junk dealer/slave trader) in terms of their CG motion. I'd love to get a little background on how they were created.

[esm]

I watched the US remake of Death Note that was just released on Netflix.

It's really bad. Also full of 80s music for idk what reason.

[erilaz]

^ I decided that I wasn't going to waste my time on that. I already have too many other things to watch on Netflix as it is (including Okja and the last two episodes of A Series of Unfortunate Events).

I finally saw Spider-Man: Homecoming on Sunday, taking refuge in a movie theater to escape the heat wave. It was a lot of fun. I thought Zendaya was hilarious.

[Nayoko-Kihara]

Snatched ★★
Goldie Hawn was fine, but Amy Schumer just isn't funny. The movie in general was only alright, but I can't help feeling like it would've been more entertaining with Kristen Wiig or Kate McKinnon.

[erilaz]

mother! (2017) — Darren Aronofsky's latest. A young woman (Jennifer Lawrence) has a tough time after her significantly older husband (Javier Bardem) lets a stranger (Ed Harris) spend the night at their house. Things go from bad to worse to over-the-top art-house allegory.

Spoiler: show

I actually enjoyed it more when it seemed to be a horror-thriller about helplessness in the face of home invasion than when the allegory became more and more obvious. I was reminded of Polanski's Repulsion and Lennon & Ono's Rape, though ultimately mother! is a very different sort of film. (Trying not to be too spoilery here!)

[erilaz]

On DVD:
Baptism of Blood (洗礼) (1996) — What do you do when you're an actress, and you're getting old and have a nasty skin condition? Why, you have your brain transplanted into the skull of your pretty, young daughter! It's a fun little thriller, with sex, gore, and some nice plot twists, and I enjoyed it more than I expected.

At the theater:
Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) — Like the first one, this one has plenty of shoot-'em-up, smash-'em-up, blow-'em-up fun.

Elton

[Nayoko-Kihara]

La La Land ★★★

It was okay. Usually "okay" would be fine, but I'm frustrated that it didn't feel like it lived up to something that people wouldn't shut up about for months on end, or that earned 110 awards. I don't really care about awards when I pick which movies to watch, but I thought I couldn't go wrong with it being a musical and having earned so many. (Most of) the score, cinematography, and production/costuming were lovely. The lead cast was annoying, for different reasons, and barely kept my attention through the film. I fast forwarded through some of the songs. I will not watch it again (which is unfortunate, since musicals are one of the few things I love re-watching) and I won't recommend it to anyone. Instead I'll recommend they just listen to the soundtrack (and skip any tracks with Stone or Gosling singing).

If this movie did one thing for me, it confirmed for me that I just do not like Emma Stone. I've given her a chance for years now and still only remember enjoying one movie that somewhat prominently featured her, and she played no part in why I liked it. She gets to join ScarJo on the list of people I will probably try to avoid in future releases.

[DSQueenie]

It's not a film but I watched Neo Yokio on Netflix. I... I kinda loved it.

I mean the animation was pretty bad but it was just so insanely hilarious. Jaden Smith was on point and the Toblerone and vaping references were just so stupid but in the best way.