The "last movie I saw" thread

[il Padrino Ute]

What if your wife wanted to see "The Great Escape" or "Dirty Dozen?" Would you call them chick flicks?

My wife doesn't like good movies such as those you mentioned. The closest thing to a war/action film that she's seen was Somewhere in Time.

[LiveCoug]

Finally saw Slumdog Millionaire. I thought it was great and my wife didn't really like it. The treatment and circumstances of the orphans was too much for her. Some of those scenes were a little tough, but overall, two thumbs up.

[il Padrino Ute]

Last night I was flipping through the channels and came across the most awesome move ever on the SciFi Channel... Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus.

This film is a masterpiece. Either the makers of the film are complete morons and just happened to be lucky enough to make such an unintentionally hilarious movie, or they are comedic geniuses to make something this brilliant. One thing I came away with was learning that there is actually something that Debbie Gibson does worse than sing... act. Her acting would have been the highlight, were it not for everything else about this move. And Lorenzo Lamas is just where he should be these days... choking the life out of his career while trying to resuscitate it.

Be prepared to be blown away by sheer awesomeness:

[YOUTUBE]Fa7ck5mcd1o[/YOUTUBE]

[BoylenOver]

"Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset"

Fantastic films. The dialogue feels so genuine and so natural, and Delpy and Hawke have a dynamic chemistry. I also love the long shots and the subtle body language.

Both movies combined amounted to 3 hours, and I feel like I could've watched twice that. To see them 9 years later, more guarded and less idealistic--yet still attracted to each other--it's engrossing.

[Jeff Lebowski]

The King's Speech. Fantastic.

[Surfah]

The King's Speech. Fantastic.

Gidget bought this when it came out and we finally watched it this week. I agree that it was fantastic.

[Katy Lied]

Just saw the Baader-Meinhof Complex, streaming on Netflix.

This was a fabulous movie, if you're in the mood for a serious history lesson and can find 2.5 hours of uninterrupted solace. The movie chronicles the german terrorists of the Red Army Faction that organized in 1970 and lasted through the end of the century.

The leadership of the Baader-Meinhof Gang couldn't seem to refrain from arguing with everyone. They started with protests against US imperialism in Vietnam, but ended up fighting with everyone. When they undertook training in a terrorist camp in JOrdan, they scandalized the jihadh warriors when the women would sunbathe naked on the top of the woman's dormitories. When imprisoned, they went on hunger strikes to protest their prison conditions, which looked pretty good to me; they all had roomy cells with libraries and typewriters and televisions. And they fought a lot amongst themselves. Whenever Ulricke Meinhof would disagree with Baader, he would accuse her of subverting their political revolution into a feminist revolutions, which seemed to bring her in line. He excluded all other revlutionary movements but his own two favorites, the german political revolution and the sexual revolution. He regularly called all the women in the movement the C word, and in general seemed a jerk. Meinhof was more complex.

The movie starts with a student protest against the Shah of Iran, and encompasses many of the events in the 70s and 80s, including the Munich Olympics, Euro Terrorism, and even the Luftansa hijacking that Dieter Uchtdorf was involved with. If you liked the movie Munich, you'd probably like this one.

[RobinFinderson]

Just saw the Baader-Meinhof Complex, streaming on Netflix.

This was a fabulous movie, if you're in the mood for a serious history lesson and can find 2.5 hours of uninterrupted solace. The movie chronicles the german terrorists of the Red Army Faction that organized in 1970 and lasted through the end of the century.

The leadership of the Baader-Meinhof Gang couldn't seem to refrain from arguing with everyone. They started with protests against US imperialism in Vietnam, but ended up fighting with everyone. When they undertook training in a terrorist camp in JOrdan, they scandalized the jihadh warriors when the women would sunbathe naked on the top of the woman's dormitories. When imprisoned, they went on hunger strikes to protest their prison conditions, which looked pretty good to me; they all had roomy cells with libraries and typewriters and televisions. And they fought a lot amongst themselves. Whenever Ulricke Meinhof would disagree with Baader, he would accuse her of subverting their political revolution into a feminist revolutions, which seemed to bring her in line. He excluded all other revlutionary movements but his own two favorites, the german political revolution and the sexual revolution. He regularly called all the women in the movement the C word, and in general seemed a jerk. Meinhof was more complex.

The movie starts with a student protest against the Shah of Iran, and encompasses many of the events in the 70s and 80s, including the Munich Olympics, Euro Terrorism, and even the Luftansa hijacking that Dieter Uchtdorf was involved with. If you liked the movie Munich, you'd probably like this one.

Great film! This is a fascinating bit of history that pair nicely with the Audiobook biography of Che Guevara that I am currently listening to. Like these revolutionaries, Che brought groups of would-be guerrillas to training camps in Algeria. It makes me wonder if the 'terrorist training camps' we read about today are the newer franchise versions of the Bader-Meinhof-Che camps from back in the day.

[thesaint258]

I saw Hanna this weekend. The movie had a European feel to it, and I liked that aspect of it. If you want to see a thirteen or fourteen year old girl who's also trained her whole life to be an assassin, you should check out this movie. I liked it enough that I'll probably buy it when it comes out on DVD.

[Lost Student]

I watched "Rio" with my two older daughters a few weeks ago. (Ages 4 and 3.) The younger one got a little frightened a few times but I think liked it. My older one enjoyed it a lot.

I thought the characters were good and the story interesting. My favorite part was how it showed the favellas and other aspects of Brazil and gave me strong saudades of my mission. E.g., how the sidewalks are tiled with black and white stone tiles into cool wavy patterns.

I'm going to see the new X-Men movie tomorrow for our firm's annual movie day. I'm looking forward to it.

[Donuthole]

Saw Unstoppable last weekend. Not terrible. Denzel played essentially the same role he has played in his last 30 films, but that's to be expected.

[CJF]

My kids and I also saw Kung Fu Panda 2 on Saturday. You know, I usually hate Dreamworks Animation and its determination to turn every one of its animated film into an endless sequel machine, but I gotta say that I find the Kung Fu Panda world and characters so appealing, I'd be perfectly happy to see a new adventure roll around every couple years.

I didn't see the first. We just took our son the KFP2 and I was disappointed. If it had been for me it would have been ok. And maybe I misunderstood the target audience. I thought the movie was too dark and complicated to children. I am not a fan.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Midnight in Paris. One of Woody Allen's best efforts in a long time (I didn't like V.C.Barcelona that much, and some of his films in the past two decades have been pretty bad. But this was enjoyable from start to finish, with a kind of Purple Rose of Cairo vibe, without some of the darker undertones. The wife and I really enjoyed it, and we both want to see it again. It's kind of a cinematic trivia contest about the '20s in Paris.

[BoylenOver]

"Happiness"

It's uncomfortable, and the sadness is searing, but it's also absurdly funny. A bunch of solid performances, and the humanizing of typically-inhuman archetypes is very interesting.

[Green Lantern]

My friend and I caught Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives at the Broadway on Tuesday. Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's film won the Palm d'Or at last year's Cannes Film Festival and man, it is one of the more unusual films I've ever seen. I'm glad I talked my friend into going to see it because (a) we were the only people in the theater and it would have been weird to be there all by myself and (b) people would think I was exaggerating the weirdness of this film if I didn't have an eyewitness who could back me up.

The "plot" concerns an aging widower named Boonmee who is suffering acute kidney failure and is rapidly approaching his last days. His sister-in-law and nephew come out to his farm to help care for him and suddenly other family members start appearing as well, like Boonmee's long dead wife. His long missing son shows up too, only now he's part "monkey ghost" and looks kind of like Chewbacca. What's fascinating is that nobody seems to be too surprised at this. They all sit at the dinner table and talk. You get the feeling that the physical and spiritual worlds are very closely aligned for these people.

The movie continues in a very meditative, non-linear fashion as the director favors long takes and static shots of the beautiful Thai jungles and the narrative wanders through past and present, giving us glimpses of Boonmee's past lives (I think. I wasn't always sure what was going on.) At one point we follow an aging princess who has a weird erotic encounter with a talking catfish. That's what kind of movie this is. There is an overall feeling of oneness with animals and nature and even though it's nominally about death and dying, instead of being depressing the film remains contemplative and hopeful (and weird. I mentioned the catfish sex scene, right?)

My friend summed it up best when he said "I'm really glad I saw that, I think." This movie left me more than a little baffled and confused, but not really in a bad way. I can't honestly say I understood most (all?) of what was going on, but I find myself still thinking about the film quite a bit and it was definitely a welcome step outside of my cinematic comfort zone.

The link above is to critic Sean Means' review, which I think gives a pretty good idea of what you're in for.