What movies have you seen lately? Now with reviews!Movies 

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Last weekend I watched I am Frankelda, the first Mexican stop motion animation full lenght movie. It's crude compared with the films of Laika and the like, but that adds to its charm, and seriously it has one of the best soundtracks ever, animated or not.
If you are curious, there is a 5-chapter series of it available through HBO Max: Frankelda Book of Spooks.
 
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So yeah, I watched Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein (Netflix) on Sunday, and it was quite good. But IMO it's not his peak.

His 2001-2013 period, starting with The Devil's Backbone, through Pacific Rim is his strongest in my view, and then from The Shape of Water through Pinocchio and this. Crimson Peak is somewhat of a misfire (but glorious to watch), and would you believe I have totally ignored Nightmare Alley (well, most of the world did, pandemic-era movie).

Anyways, 4.0 Blüchers out of 5, because making the creature immortal (and self-regenerating) makes the polar chase somewhat unnecessary, they could have fought and settled their score anywhere.

Mel Brooks GIF
 
Watched this Sunday night.
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Norway film. Similar frustrations to doom movies, but this was inspired by real situations.
Me and my wife enjoyed it, but again, with frustrating characters that do the thing they shouldn't have done.
Nothing spectacular, but filmed really well. Several character arcs were carried throughout the film to completion. Easy to watch.
 
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Straight get into it movie. Not much drama stirring like Into the Storm. All actors played their roles convincingly. Good to watch.
 
05XR8
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Straight get into it movie. Not much drama stirring like Into the Storm. All actors played their roles convincingly. Good to watch.
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Stumbled across that one a few months ago. I was very impressed with it, especially with it being a based on a true story movies.
 
After having watched Predator Badlands recently (7/10, surprisingly good) I finally watched Prey yesterday. Had been on my watchlist since its release in 2022.

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Naru is a straight badass. Not only is she the only one realizing that there's something out there in the woods. She also single handedly takes down a huge operation of für hunters all while keeping the patriarchy from keeping her down.

She is to Prey what Arnie is to Predator (with tomahawk rather than Gatling gun).

8/10 for me. A very good action movie.

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Predator: Killer of Killers is next.



Today I watched the Roses. A good movie overall. Could have been a master piece if the warring part wouldn't have been so over top. If they had kept this believable it could have been a 9 but now it is only a 7/10. Some of the deliberately awkward moments especially with their friend are rather forced and over the top as well. The movie doesn't really need them

The serious parts of the movie hit pretty hard though. Especially if you have ended a very long term relationship like theirs before and/or struggle with being a progressive liberal man. Being masculine yet emotionally available. Being confident and decisive yet understanding and ready to compromise. All such things. The movie treats these topics really seriously without being awkward or lecturing anyone.

Being a toxic alpha with a submissive partner is definitely a simpler life.

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Wilsonson
After having watched Predator Badlands recently (7/10, surprisingly good) I finally watched Prey yesterday. Had been on my watchlist since its release in 2022.

View attachment 1497378

Naru is a straight badass. Not only is she the only one realizing that there's something out there in the woods. She also single handedly takes down a huge operation of für hunters all while keeping the patriarchy from keeping her down.

She is to Prey what Arnie is to Predator (with tomahawk rather than Gatling gun).

8/10 for me. A very good action movie.

View attachment 1497377

Predator: Killer of Killers is next.



Today I watched the Roses. A good movie overall. Could have been a master piece if the warring part wouldn't have been so over top. If they had kept this believable it could have been a 9 but now it is only a 7/10. Some of the deliberately awkward moments especially with their friend are rather forced and over the top as well. The movie doesn't really need them

The serious parts of the movie hit pretty hard though. Especially if you have ended a very long term relationship like theirs before and/or struggle with being a progressive liberal man. Being masculine yet emotionally available. Being confident and decisive yet understanding and ready to compromise. All such things. The movie treats these topics really seriously without being awkward or lecturing anyone.

Being a toxic alpha with a submissive partner is definitely a simpler life.

View attachment 1497379
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Coincidentally I watched The Roses yesterday and I agree with most of your takes, the parts where the marriage starts to crumble are heartfelt, and well-acted and scripted, but the abrupt tonal shifts undermine the overall effort. The slapstick violence at the end mimics the original War of the Roses movie (it's not a remake though) and the final scenes feels to me like a cop-out: It can be interpreted that they die a horrific death, but it can be open ended too. I would have preferred a later closing scene where both are laying in the emergency room, comically bandaged, but alive and holding hands, thus subverting the ending of War of the Roses. The ending also leaves their kids hanging. Curiously, their custody is never in play in the divorce negotiations, and mercifully they were only used passively-agressively by Theo against Ivy, but that doesn't poison their relationships with their mum.

Lastly, if I were to assign blame on the relationship, Theo 70% and Ivy 30% because: It was his hubris that sunk his career and then brough the worst out of Ivy. Ivy in turn should have set limits when she threw him the lifesaver of building the house.

Anyways, a 7/10 movie.
 
Very interesting to hear your reasoning on the 70-30 blame. When she said
But I paid for the house
I knew she was the devil. Her worst was orders of magnitudes worse than his worst.

Edit: how do you do the blurry spoiler text here?
 
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Wilsonson
Very interesting to hear your reasoning on the 70-30 blame. When she said
But I paid for the house
I knew she was the devil. Her worst was orders of magnitudes worse than his worst.

Edit: how do you do the blurry spoiler text here?
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I agree to disagree, but she
could have divorced him instead of giving him the chance of building the house when he was unemployable and that could have been his comeback and redemption, but instead it played to his dark and egotistical traits as person and architect.
 
Yesterday we watched In the Line of Fire (Clint Eastwood, John Malkovich, Renee Russo), a very entertaining action thriller made right after his best film (The Unforgiven, of course), and that was rightly nominated to the Oscar for supporting actor/editing and has great direction and cinematography all-around, courtesy of Wolfgang Petersen.

I prefer it to Absolute Power, which Eastwood later directed/acted.
 
Nacho Libre
Yesterday we watched In the Line of Fire (Clint Eastwood, John Malkovich, Renee Russo), a very entertaining action thriller made right after his best film (The Unforgiven, of course), and that was rightly nominated to the Oscar for supporting actor/editing and has great direction and cinematography all-around, courtesy of Wolfgang Petersen.

I prefer it to Absolute Power, which Eastwood later directed/acted.
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I like In the Line of Fire more than Bloodwork as well. On a similar note as In the Line of Fire, I place it on par with The Jackal. John Malkovich and Bruce Willis played their ruthless characters equally well.
 
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What a movie, just seen the Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair at the cinema. Even if you've seen it before, this is worth another look on the big screen. The one long movie format works beautifully.
 
Sprite
Got back just over an hour ago from 28 Years.

Thoroughly enjoyed. Great thing is you really don’t need to know the first two films but it’s bonus if you do.

Split into two acts the first is a setup and basic character building intro. Despite the setting being in a small community it didn’t feel this way so was a little disappointing and could have been used to better add claustrophobia and tension, putting the viewer on edge before the second act.

The second act was the best for me. More of what I actually expected, and Voldemort shows his kind and caring side which was nice.

The end sets up the next film. However it’s a little odd and those who know when you see the film will know. :lol:

Some have drawn comparisons to the Cuarón film "Children of Men" and I’d have to agree.
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Just watched 28 Years Later over the weekend. Loved it. It's been a good while since i watched the previous two, but this totally works fine on it's own too. It's a good tightly paced film, never feels like any aspect was filler. There's much, especially the ending :lol:, that will go over most non-British heads and even younger British heads, but they're more like easter eggs than knowledge required to understand the plot. Cast was good, Ralph Fiennes and Alfie Williams who played the kid were especially so. Looking forward to the next instalment.
 
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Over the weekend I tried to watch Kinds of Kindness (I'm 2/3 into since it's a tryptic of stories) but I don't know If I will complete it. Of Yorgos Lanthimos/Emma Stone I've liked The Favourite and Poor Little Things, the latter to a point, but this one feels like a vanity project pretending to be deep, but that actually is rather hollow. 5/10 so far.

On Sunday I watched Wake Up Dead Man, the third of the Knives Out movies and the mystery was entertaining and the performances all-around were outstanding with Josh O'Connor as the young priest, and Glenn Close, who IMO manages to steal the movie until the very end. 9/10.

I will rewatch something from Rob Reiner this week, in memoriam.
 
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Saw this last night and was unfortunately pretty underwhelmed. I was really looking forward to finally watching it when it hit Netflix but it really didn‘t live up to the hype for me.

I mean the movie is very well made and beautifully shot with some stunning cinematography and generally good acting but I found the script pretty weak and full of plot holes.

I had already suspended my disbelief a lot at this point but the scene with the infected woman giving birth made me stop taking the film seriously.

It also seemed to me like the movie couldn‘t decide on its tone, it‘s part horror and part coming of age movie with a bit of slapstick humor and family drama sprinkled in. And wtf was that ending?

It felt like a set up for a potential sequel but also some weird reference I‘m apparently not getting

Lots of wasted potential imo.
 
Sprite
The ending is very much a British reference and I suspected quite a lot of the world may not get it. I’m sure the next film will tie it up (maybe)
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That makes sense, would you mind explaining it?

I mean I‘m aware that the guy with the upside down cross necklace is the preacher‘s son from the beginning but why are they all wearing these ridiculous clothes and haircuts and what‘s up with the sudden shift in tone?
 
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MetalApe
The trailer for the sequel is already in cinemas, release date Jan 16

For me, the characters at the end are cross between the Clockwork Orange droogs and Jimmy Saville.
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That’s pretty much it, due to the world ending for them when Jimmy was alive and the like, they’ve misled their look on him which coupled with some weird Bruce Lee / Martial arts moves etc, it’s just funny.
 
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Fantastic documentary about a French wildlife photographer searching for a snow leopard in Tibet. I especially liked the stunning visuals and the film‘s almost meditative atmosphere. The soundtrack by Nick Cave was amazing too. A beautiful tribute to nature!
 
Yesterday we watched Avatar Fire and Ash on a 3D screen. It is action packed from the get-go with no explanation of what came before, so anybody not invested on the world/characters/story will be left out unless they watch them on streaming or catch a summary elsewhere.

Today now that I think about it, I'm rather disappointed because it doesn't really expands the world of Pandora beyond what we watched in the first two movies, with no new animal/plant species or biodomes really, and the new enemy tribe is shallow and disappointing, even with all the references to Last of the Mohicans (the 1990's movie, rather than the book): Their name, the Mangkwan even resembles Magua, the formidable antagonist of LOTM who actually had better cause for his grievances; so, a volcano blew up on you and you are mad at the world-goddess? Boohoo, just migrate elsewhere. Ah, and there are also wind traders, but they just serve as a plot point.
Quaritch (or rather, his Na'vi bodied clone) as a villain has also become stale, and the other plot points about Spider becoming a type of hybrid, and Kiri being basically Na'vi Jesus are either not fully explored or just resolved enough to keep the almost 3-hour movie going on. And the movie basically comes to a stop when exploring the family grief about the death of Neteyam.

That being said, if you are a gamer and enjoyed Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, there is a lengthy action sequence that gloriously resembles one of the many big RDA base busting missions in the game. You'll know when you see it.

I'll give it a 7/10, the big spectacle you expect, but that is now recycling/repeating from its superior siblings. Do the Avatar movie set only on Earth next, James Cameron.
 
Just watched Zootopia 2 with my best friend. It was probably better than the first one. Lot of action and emotions.
 
I didn't have in my bingo card that a Japanese remake of Speed (Bullet Train Explosion, horrible title, BTW) would be my most entertaining action movie of 2025, just in the eve of the New Year.
 
Well, I just watched my first bad movie in 2026. The Snowman (on Amazon Prime), a 2017 serial murder mystery that features the talents of Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Toby Jones, J. K. Simmons and even the late Val Kilmer (!). If you've never heard of this it's ok, because all that star power goes to waste in a mystery that is poorly paced/edited, and you will discover the culprit some 30-40 minutes before the climax...

Oh, and considering the views of Norway where it takes place... There is not enough money in the world to pay me to visit, let alone live there!
 
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C+/B-

It's a Tron movie. The visuals, soundtrack, and sci-fi concepts are pretty great. The story, characters, and acting are just OK. I might like NIN's work more than Daft Punk's, especially the track with Judeline. Not a fan of how movie yadda yadda'd Legacy, instead of continuing it, but I'm fine with a new story. Can't wait for the sequel in another 15 to 29 years.
 
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