What was the last movie you saw?

Synchronic (2019). Two paramedics investigate a series of deaths caused by a drug that lets people travel time. The high concept is, in itself, interesting, but I don't like the way it was executed. They introduced a doctor in chemistry that created the drug, and that pseudo/soft science made it weird for me to like the movie. A time travel machine would be more believable.
 
The Void (2016). Lovecraftian horror I watched to help me with inspirations for my novelette. It helped. This movie is a good throwback to 80's horror practical effects, specially John Carpenter's The Thing and it feels like a nightmare for the entire runtime. You don't get to rest. The monsters are creepy. And the movie doesn't explain much to you, leaving the spectator to formulate his own theories.
 
Rodders said:
There are still a couple of good, (possibly great), Star Trek movies to come.

The Search for Spock isn't as bad as people suggest.
The Voyage home is a fun watch (although not brilliant, granted)
The Final Frontier is absolute dog dirt.
The Undiscovered Country is the best one after TWOK in my opinion.

For some reason, despite TNG being my preferred trek, I didn't like the films too much.
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For me, Star Trek has always been about the camaraderie and interaction between the main characters , than it is about the action. Search for Spock is on a par with Voyage Home, and both are very enjoyable because of the humour and warmth of the main characters.

Yes, Final Frontier throws new stuff into the mix and doesn't make a great deal of sense. However, it does feel more like one of TOS episodes (it is in some respects quite similar to The Menagerie) than any other of the movies, and it has some of the best interactions between the main characters.

I agree , that whilst TNG episodes are better than TOS, Voyager and DS9, the movies never were. I tend to put that down partly to the fact that there was far too much action in them (again, the original series strength was the development of the characters , not their armaments) and to the fact that they tended to focus far more on Data than any other character.
 
Nobody

I'm still undecided if it's a great film or just a good film, but I do know that I watched it from start to finish in one sitting. Maybe that was down to the fact that it's only 90 minutes long, maybe because I wanted to know what was going to happen next.

Far better than the similar (ish) John Wick etc movies
 
paranoid marvin said:
Did you watch Space Seed first?
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We watched the whole TOS and are now on season two of TNG - my son has one of those vast and annoyingly detailed memories. (He can quote chapter and verse for the first five seasons of Futurama - "Oh that's like that episode in season three when when Fry XXXed and Ziodberg yyyed." ) He remembered the Botany Bay before Checkov.
 
Riot on Sunset Strip (1967)

Hipspolitation flick very, very loosely inspired by a real confrontation between police and young folks concerning a local curfew on the Sunset Strip just a few months before the movie was released. The curfew issue is talked about for a bit, but the rest of the film is pure fiction.

The daughter of a divorced police lieutenant, living with her drunken mother (who, for some reason, has pink hair) goes to a "freak out" where she is given LSD in her soft drink. Her "trip" consists entirely of her performance of a slow motion modern dance routine.

What has been an enjoyable campy movie up to now takes a much darker turn when the daughter, still stoned out of her mind, is gang raped at the "freak out." Her father runs into three of the guys who raped her and beats them up. (Weirdly, they're at the hospital where she's staying, so she can identify them, but there aren't any cops around.) His attack gets in the news, leading to the "riot," which consists entirely of young folks marching with protest signs. Dad stops a cop from hitting a protester with his nightstick, which makes him enough of a hero to his daughter that they're reconciled.

There's another demonstration early in the film where people carry extremely generic signs, saying things like RIGHTS NOT FIGHTS, LIVE AND LET LIVE, LOVERS NOT FIGHTERS, and, most hilariously, BE NICE. There's also an odd bit where a couple of the "longhairs" volunteer to help the cops by putting on armbands and breaking up fights.

Enjoy some groovy psychedelic/garage/proto-punk music provided by the Standells (best known for "Dirty Water") and the Chocolate Watchband!
 
Rodders said:
There are still a couple of good, (possibly great), Star Trek movies to come.

The Search for Spock isn't as bad as people suggest.
The Voyage home is a fun watch (although not brilliant, granted)
The Final Frontier is absolute dog dirt.
The Undiscovered Country is the best one after TWOK in my opinion.

For some reason, despite TNG being my preferred trek, I didn't like the films too much.
Click to expand...
I like them all
 
Shriek of the Mutilated (1974)

Abysmal film with a great title. Professor takes a group of students to an island in search of a Yeti. (Mind you, this takes place in North America.) He also treats one student to a special meal at a special restaurant, telegraphing our Shocking Twist Ending.

Before the group leaves, some guy who was on a similar expedition freaks out at a party and relates how everybody but him got killed by the Yeti. (You get to hear the instrumental hit song "Popcorn" by Hot Butter at the party, because somebody is making popcorn.) Later, in a bizarrely unrelated subplot, this guy cuts his wife's throat and gets into the bathtub with all his clothes on. Amazingly, she's still alive, and crawls from the kitchen to the bathroom in order to electrocute him by throwing a toaster in the tub.)

The island is inhabited by one guy and his Native American manservant, patronizingly calling him "My Indian." Long and excruciatingly slow story short, folks get killed by the Yeti (some guy in a really fake white fur suit, which also telegraphs our Shocking Twist Ending.) One victim's severed leg is used as bait to attract the Yeti; later, an entire body is used the same way. The Shocking Twist Ending arrives, and the movie drags on for a while.

It's really bad. The version I watched seems to have cut out a lot of gore, which is OK with me. What's left is mostly a lot of people talking.
 
Victoria Silverwolf said:
Shriek of the Mutilated (1974)

Abysmal film with a great title. Professor takes a group of students to an island in search of a Yeti. (Mind you, this takes place in North America.) He also treats one student to a special meal at a special restaurant, telegraphing our Shocking Twist Ending.

Before the group leaves, some guy who was on a similar expedition freaks out at a party and relates how everybody but him got killed by the Yeti. (You get to hear the instrumental hit song "Popcorn" by Hot Butter at the party, because somebody is making popcorn.) Later, in a bizarrely unrelated subplot, this guy cuts his wife's throat and gets into the bathtub with all his clothes on. Amazingly, she's still alive, and crawls from the kitchen to the bathroom in order to electrocute him by throwing a toaster in the tub.)

The island is inhabited by one guy and his Native American manservant, patronizingly calling him "My Indian." Long and excruciatingly slow story short, folks get killed by the Yeti (some guy in a really fake white fur suit, which also telegraphs our Shocking Twist Ending.) One victim's severed leg is used as bait to attract the Yeti; later, an entire body is used the same way. The Shocking Twist Ending arrives, and the movie drags on for a while.

It's really bad. The version I watched seems to have cut out a lot of gore, which is OK with me. What's left is mostly a lot of people talking.
Click to expand...
I think I saw this almost 40 years ago on a VHS tape at a bachelor party; at least, that's the title I recall. Was there scene where the yeti was ducking behind trees?

The bachelor party was pretty tame as they go, and the movie was the most memorable part of it because it's hysterically funny after a couple of beers.
 
Some movies you hear of but never get around to them.
Shriek of the Mutilated is one of those.

I rewatched WOMEN OF DEVIL'S ISLAND 1962--there must have been lots of women in prison films by that time but this one has a pirates and French Revolution spin to it. The prisoners have to pan for gold in a crocodile-infested swamp and they sing a nice French tune I wish was available in full. It's a women's chorus with the lyrics: "Oui! Oui! Oui! Non! Non! Non!"

Who knew that harsh labor in a prison camp could elicit such pleasing vocal harmony?
Paul Muller--a familiar face in Euro film--who last I checked on IMDB was still alive--he must be a 100--is the harsh commander of the penal colony who, as you expect, will offer the women favors if they visit his bedroom.

It has a nice score.
 
Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century (Yeti – Il gigante del 20º secolo, 1977)

Deliriously silly film "inspired" by King Kong. Seems to have been badly cut from the Italian original, so the plot is a bit jumpy. Example: Movie starts with Rich Guy asking Science Guy to go on some kind of expedition. Science Guy says no. This immediately cuts to Science Guy leading a team of folks thawing the Yeti out of a block of ice with flamethrowers.

Anyway, de-iced but still frozen Yeti gets put into a thing like a telephone booth (remember those?) and carried up to ten thousand feet, hanging from a helicopter. Why? Because that's closer to its natural environment in the Himalayas. (Despite the fact that the entire movie is set in Canada.) Then they spray it with oxygen and warm water, which would seem to be the exact opposite of its natural environment, but what do I know.

Well, things play out as you'd expect. Rich Guy uses the revived Yeti (which, by the way, was about the size of a basketball player beneath the helicopter, but is the size of King Kong in the rest of the movie) for advertising purposes. This includes gasoline ads saying "Put a Yeti in your tank!" and, oddly, a bunch of fashion model types wearing identical T-shirts with blue hands over their breasts and reading "Kiss me Yeti" on the back.

Rich Guy's nubile granddaughter is our movie's Fay Wray. She's accompanied by her younger brother and a Lassie-type dog. Yes, the Yeti freaks out when flash bulbs go off, goes on a rampage, carries off the granddaughter, etc. There's a subplot involving Rich Guy's business rivals, who try to destroy Yeti.

Notable are the scenes where Yeti combs the granddaughter's hair with the skeleton of a giant fish, and where Yeti strangles one of the bad guys between two of its toes.

Goofy fun. Keep your ears open for the disco song about the Yeti.
 
Gladiator of Rome 1962 - Gordon Scott is a "giant" who cuts wood for his master and can carry a big log on his shoulder while chatting amicably with a slave girl. As impressive as that seemed-later the tiny slave girl was carrying a big basket of rocks like Kirk Douglas did at the start of Spartacus. Later she is carrying a huge sack around.
I am not sure which is more impressive. This girl can really work.
The story starts with a bad guy telling another bag guy that he is looking for this very slave girl--he is asked if he loves her and he looks upset and says "no, I have been ordered to kill her."
He's upset because if he fails, and he has been trying for 2 years, he can't return home. But we don't see him again for a while as the story switches to Christians being persecuted and Scott becoming a gladiator (though he never fights in the arena).
In fact, this is another one without a dancing girl scene but someone does say at one point: where are the dancing girls?
 
I watched a few movies based on true stories recently.
One good one, though probably only loosely based on reality, was Above Suspicion (2019).
A crime thriller/murder investigation, in a redneck town, where the investigator gets romantically involved with an informer. Emilia Clarke does a good job with her acting in this one.
 
Our Idiot Brother (2011). I love this film. I feel like I can relate to the titular character, not because I'm simple, but because I've always felt like the black sheep in my family--I'm usually a pushover and I can't keep a secret very well (I don't "tell on" people maliciously or even on purpose, but I always let it slip when in "relax mode"). I think it's quite funny and has a lovely ending.
 
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